Rumoured 1st Rounder Reviews: Terrace Marshall Jr.

This series of posts focuses on those prospects who have been regularly mocked to the Ravens over the course of draft season.

First things first, I don’t condone this. Having just studied the Steelers draft history, I agree with Eric DeCosta; we should take more swings at receiver in the draft, it pays off. But I don’t think that extends to the first round, just as it doesn’t with Pittsburgh.

Davante Adams and Allen Robinson in the second round, Keenan Allen and Chris Godwin in the third round, Stefon Diggs in the fifth round – Tyreek Hill too (more because of his pleading guilty to domestic abuse while at Oklahoma State), receivers can and are more likely to be found out of the first round.

There have been those who were worth a late first round pick, recently too with Justin Jefferson and AJ Brown but there have also been plenty of swings and misses, and I don’t yet trust the Ravens to bat anywhere near 1.000.

Having said that, as with every single draft year, many receivers have been mocked to us over recent months. Like every year, after I’ve worked through most of my evaluations, I find myself going back to watching potential late first round receivers. From Hakeem Nicks, to Devin Smith to AJ Brown himself, I’ve had my favourites going way back but they read like a crapshoot.

I’m sure I’ll be doing a few of these receivers this year, as there is definitely a cluster of guys who, depending on your evaluation, could go in the second round or who could sneak into the back end of round one. The most frequent name popping up for the Ravens off this list is Terrace Marshall Jr. out of LSU.

The third wheel to Justin Jefferson and Ja’marr Chase’s historic 2019 season, Marshall still put up good numbers alongside those two superstars and followed it up this year with similar numbers despite significantly less snaps and routes run, as well as below par quarterback play for most of the season.

Frustratingly, for the purposes of evaluating Marshall and I’m sure for him too, he opted out just before Max Johnson took over the Quarterback job full time. It would have been interesting to see what he could have done as the number one receiver with something resembling competent quarterback play, something we just didn’t see for him at LSU this past year.

Plug in the tape (why do we say that – nobody has plugged in a tape for years) and the first thing that stands out is his length, LSU have a habit of over-selling their receivers’ height but his looks to be legit. It’s elite for the position and I’m sure the Ravens have noticed the frame – something we are missing in our receiving corps at the moment outside Boykin.

You’ll also invariably see him catch a deep ball quickly, something he does in almost textbook fashion. As well as having the speed to get open deep and the length to deploy in contested catch situations, he has all the expert movements you see out of a polished deep ball receiver. He has the discipline to track the ball flawlessly in the air. He has the savvy to stack the defensive back and adjust to the ball using his body expertly to remain open. And, to keep the defender that can’t locate the ball guessing, he brings up his hands at the last possible second to make a clean and soft catch. He repeats this motion over several successful reps at LSU and you can feel comfortable about him as a reliable deep threat. And reassuringly, he is not just a one trick pony.

The body control and ability to shield the ball from defensive backs using his frame is something that shows up all over the field not just on the deep ball and especially in the redzone. He’s not a huge catch radius guy – not someone who you can be inaccurate with and not worry – but if you put it in the right place in a contested catch situation, he will put it away.

By saying he’s not a huge catch radius guy, I’m actually tipping my hat to an area of his game that doesn’t quite live up to others in the class; his explosion. This combined with his route running needing some development – there isn’t a lot of precision or consistency to his routes – and you start to see why there isn’t always a tonne of separation at the top of his routes when facing man coverage.

He’s learning some route-running savvy including and especially how to set up the DB with the threat of his go-route prowess, coming open underneath, and he’s learning the value of slow-playing some routes to accentuate his breaks. But he’s developing and the lack of explosion means shorter and intermediate routes requiring a more sudden break see the defender stuck to his hip pocket.

Before this season I also wanted to see him feel for the soft spot in the zone more consistently and help out his quarterback by sitting down open – he has improved this immensely this year though and you can see him consistently find that soft spot, making intelligent small adjustments to his position to help out his quarterback.

The other area of his game that’s a concern is his hands. Drops usually fluctuate up and down each year and that could certainly be the case for Marshall who, in significantly more snaps last year, only put two really glaring ones on tape. This year though, we saw seven. I would argue some were fix-able, and maybe some due to the quarterback play but some were straight drops, either from letting the ball get into his body, or by not being strong enough immediately after the catch – getting two hands on the ball but still allowing the pass break-up.

Adding more strength at every catch-point could really add to his game and bring his drops down to a more manageable number even in a year when he’s unlucky enough to have more than usual. I also don’t want to go overboard on him, you can see some great catches on tape, some with a high degree of difficulty. I would say he has good hands, he adjusts to the poorly-thrown ball well and is a safe receiver on the whole.

And who knows how the inaccuracy we saw from LSU quarterbacks affected him in terms of drops. I think context is vital when evaluating players and Marshall is a tough evaluation because of this weird situation that left him as the number three receiver in a potent offense before becoming the number one in an anaemic offense. I can see him make quarterbacks better in his final season at LSU and this has to be the mark of a good player.

I’m a fan of his and I think he’s the type of receiver we’re looking for in terms of frame and long speed but I’m concerned about the catch point – I think we need a dominant receiver who believes the ball belongs to him and nobody else.

I also think I believe in Marshall’s ceiling, I’ve seen him develop over his productive years and with a more consistently competent QB and some development to add to his already acquired and God-given tools, who knows what he could turn into. While I do believe in Lamar and his development into a competent throwing QB, I’m not sure I trust the Ravens to effectively develop a wide receiver. After all, the Ravens themselves do say, the best predictor of the future is past performance and I haven’t seen the Ravens do it yet.