Since Marshall is the topic today I’ll share my irrelevant thoughts: last night I went down a YouTube rabbit hole which lead to me watching college highlights on Lamar and couldn’t help but notice he seemed comfortable putting the ball up for 50/50 balls to his Louisville wideouts. Those guys all seemed to be big guys however, 6’2+ and this led me to thinking... does Lamar do this often in the NFL? Yes, He trust Mark Andrews in these situations and Willie to a lesser extent. Anyways, as I continued down this rabbit hole I landed on Terrace Marshall film and he was winning in those situations consistently. Now, I’ve been against Marshall being the pick at 27 (admittedly because I’m infatuated with Bateman) but I’m coming around to the idea and would honestly be excited to add his skill set to the offense.
What’s your guys thoughts on him as a prospect? His fit in the offense?
i love the movement skills and speed at his size - has the long strides to run away from guys vertically both before and after the catch but also has the quickness in short areas and explosion/suddenness to be a factor underneath and with his route-running
he uses his length well at the catch-point - especially in the redzone
route tree was limited - especially in 2019 so obviously you need to do some projection - and i see elements of route running process in his game that would translate - his use of route-pacing, head-fakes and his ability to cut sharply and flatten - i'd like to see him play through contact more consistently and it looks like he was protected from press coverage by the scheme a lot in college so that would be a reservation i have - but he uses his stem well at times to get on top of the corner's toes and set up his breaks and has the ability to jab and cut at speed and stacks really well on vertical routes - there's some inconsistency at the break-point where he sometimes drifts out of his break especially underneath
my 2 concerns would be how he plays through contact in the route and his inconsistency at the break-point - what's encouraging is that there are flashes that suggest these are fixable with coaching because there are examples on tape where he does - he seems to generally have a nice feel in his route-running and i project him developing there
in terms of fit it's a little trickier - he's versatile in that he can line up in the slot or outside but we use our slot receivers a ton in the running game and marshall is a pretty awful blocker - it may also be that he's just lacking some functional strength and needs to fill out his frame a bit in an NFL weight room (which might help him in other physicality aspects of his game) - but this means that at least early we'd probably see sammy watkins play more of that slot role at least on running plays (was used somewhat in that way by the chiefs as a motion blocker) - but it would limit the early down slot usage for marshall unless he can massively improve as a blocker over this offseason
but it does mean that marshall's role at least early would be limited by the fact that he's unlikely to play the "x" (at least when we play teams that use a lot of press coverage) and he's not likely to play the slot a ton on early downs - he'll be a versatile weapon who plays a combination of all those spots based on the team we're facing but mostly in the slot/"z"