Scouting Profile: Marvin Harrison Jr., WR, Ohio State
An absolutely absurd combination of savvy, playmaking, consistency, and polish for a wide receiver prospect just starting his NFL career.
Height: 6’3 1/4”
Weight: 209lbs
Class: Junior
NFL Comparison: Marvin Harrison Sr. in A.J. Green’s body.
Even as someone who has anything but an affinity for Ohio State football, trying to find anything bad to say about wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr.'s game is like trying to come up with reasons why you wouldn't want to date Sydney Sweeney if she were suddenly single1: if you think you have a compelling reason, 1) it's almost certainly wrong, and 2) it definitely says a lot more about you than it does about them.
Forget the ideal height (6’3”+) or Vitruvian man-type catch radius or the preternatural route running abilities. In 2023, Harrison finished with 67 receptions for 1,211 yards (averaging a whopping 18.0 yards per reception) and 14 touchdown catches2—and he did all of that despite:
teams fully anticipating the fact that he was Ohio State’s most lethal offensive weapon
catching passes from a quarterback who transferred from Columbus after the season… and the place he ended up going was Syracuse3.
I personally believe that the single-most make-or-break trait for NFL wide receivers is route running proficiency, and Harrison is the proverbial chip-off-the-old-block4 in this area5. He will walk into the NFL and already be in the top of half receivers in the league in this area6. He's so natural and polished off the line, demonstrating clean and un-wasted footwork. He's fantastic at keeping his body position "neutral" as he releases into his stem, and then knowing how to subtly use his body to create separation at the top of his routes without showing any tells; he so often leaves corners absolutely frozen because they can't anticipate where he's breaking or what he's doing. As much of a contradiction as this might sound like: even though he's not super explosive off the line, he's got startling acceleration that allows him to hit top speed before the defensive back has a chance to diagnose basically anything. He has little jab steps in his routes to sell receivers on one direction before quickly snapping off in another on the underneath or intermediate stuff, and he manipulates defensive backs on vertical routes without any wasted movement on his part. Even the most physical cornerbacks struggled to disrupt Harrison’s routes, as the latter rarely broke stride or lost speed while the former would tug and grab at him. Simply put, he has an innate ability to get separation from defensive backs and finding the open spot in the coverage.
Once the ball is headed in his direction, Harrison is outstanding at tracking it from multiple angles and putting himself in position to reel it in while walling off the defender. He's excellent at boxing out defensive backs and flashing his numbers for the quarterback to throw to on slants, skinny posts, or in-breaking routes. His catch radius is inhuman, as he can contort his body into unnatural angles to reel in passes outside the normal strike zone or pluck balls out of the air even when thrown behind him. He's going to be such a cheat code in 1-on-1 coverage because he's so dangerous in jump ball or contested catch opportunities; his quarterback can simply lob it up to him knowing he's going to pull in the catch 50% (or more) of the time7. And when the ball arrives, he's an elite, natural, and effortless hands catcher. His hands are super strong, as he can can reel in passes with his fingertips and hold onto them. He does a great job of holding onto the football even as cornerbacks are mugging him or delivering hard hits8.
Oh, and lest we forget: Harrison also has a (reported) 40-yard dash time of 4.42 seconds with elite explosion and change-of-direction metrics.
Of course, nobody is perfect—even if Harrison is dripping with so much of what you look for in an NFL receiver. In fact, the “negatives” pertaining to Harrison are more about level-setting expectations of what he is versus what he isn’t (or people erroneously make him out to be). Though he’s arguably the best wide receiver prospect to come out of college since Calvin Johnson, that’s where the comparisons should end; Harrison isn’t as thick and rocked up as Megatron9. And even with Harrison's 4.4-ish speed, he's not someone who's going generate a ton of separation by virtue of his raw athleticism. By his own admission, he takes a much more clinical approach to his routes and his game overall. And he's not going to be a yards after catch (YAC) merchant at the next level. While he did a decent job in that area in college, he's not going to explode once he secures the catch. He's more of a long-strider who can definitely hit another gear, but it takes him a second to get there.
But don't get it twisted: Harrison is the dictionary definition of the phrase: "even when he's covered, he's open." He was absolutely the player whom opposing defenses approached with the "we know he's going to kill us so let's just see if we can mitigate some of the impact he makes" mindset. He routinely had highly productive performances against the best and most athletic cornerbacks he faced; don't forget that he was the only player to put up 100+ receiving yards against Michigan's air-tight defense last year. He faced a lot of huge cushions from corners lined up way deep on him or playing bail coverage, because they were terrified of his big play ability.
As lofty as this sounds, I think the best way to view Marvin Harrison Jr. is the way the NBA world viewed Tim Duncan: nothing about his game will scream flash or sex appeal, but every single time he's out there, he's going to do everything fundamentally well (at a high level), and quietly—or not so quietly—dominate whoever is in front of him. ■
And she was somehow interested in you.
In 2022, with CJ Stroud throwing him the football, Harrison had 77 catches for 1,263 yards and 14 touchdown receptions. So if you're doing the math, Harrison had 2,500+ receiving yards and 28 touchdown catches over the past two years. And that’s despite:
playing alongside another likely-to-be-highly-drafted-receiver in Emeka Egbuka.
likely leaving a lot of yardage/production on the table because he didn’t have a quarterback (in 2023) who likely failed to feed him as much as he deserved to be fed.
Translation: none of top college football programs were banging on Kyle McCord’s door to beg him to come to their team.
In case you haven’t gathered by now: Marvin Harrison Jr. is the son of Hall of Fame wide receiver Marvin Harrison, who broke NFL records catching Peyton Manning with the Indianapolis Colts.
As Nate Tice of TheAthletic/Yahoo so eloquently said: "[Harrison's] pedigree of being the son of one of the most refined route runners of all time shows up on every Ohio State passing play."
Despite the fact that he won't turn 22 years old until mid-August of this year.
tl;dr of this paragraph: his body control, hand-eye coordination, and point-of-catch skills are just ridiculous.