Are we over thinking terrace Marshall because he’s been the media’s favorite raven basically since he first broke out in 2020?
yes - and i did too early in the process as well - he's clearly not at the level of the top 4 guys - there's a clear gap (to me at least) between him and waddle, chase, smith and bateman
but he's 6'3 has sub 4.4 speed and quick feet (not just build-up speed) and the ability to break flat - on a pure athletic traits level that's very exciting
but then you get to add in the natural hands (there were some concentration drops in 2020 but nowhere near enough to worry me - not like some of the others in the class) and good in contested situations, the abilities in the redzone, and some nuanced route-running elements to his game (not amazing but there's obviously some nice processes going on), he's got slot and outside versatility, and he's very good after the catch
to me the negatives are his physicality through the route and at the release (he's slightly lean - maybe room to add some muscle to his upper body certainly) - he plays physically at the catch-point so there's something to work with there but he's too easily disrupted by physicality during the route
and then the physicality as a blocker where he's rubbish lol
and i think stylistically he makes a ton of sense - we over-drafted boykin in 2019 and higgins was the 2nd player on our board when we took queen in 2020... we've been looking at height-weight-speed guys who can change direction fluidly with good hands
with boykin it's failed because intellectually maybe he just doesn't have the ability to read defences well or adjust at the catch-point - and worryingly because he's not physical through the route or at the catch-point
that lack of physicality is there with marshall which does make that a slight worry but marshall's 2 years younger than boykin was when he was drafted and is physical at the catch-point
there's a risk to marshall but the ravens clearly like that WR profile and have been looking for it for at least a couple of years - and the fit works well with the types of routes we ask our receivers to run - lots of option-slants (marshall ran an absolute ton of those) and a vertical-based route-tree where marshall shows a very strong ability to create separation with a jab step while moving at speed
TL;DR: yes we're over-thinking marshall - there's a bit of risk but he's good and has a chance to be very good and is very probably worth the risk