Marvin Harrison Jr. was the first wide receiver selected in the 2024 draft, going to the Arizona Cardinals with the fourth pick. That’s the earliest a WR has been taken since 2015, when Amari Cooper was the Raiders’ fourth overall pick. No receiver had been taken earlier since 2007 (Calvin Johnson). Given the draft capital spent on him, it would be reasonable to expect him to explode out of the gates. Cooper, for instance, had nine targets in his NFL debut (a 21% target share).
Harrison had three. His first target was wide and uncatchable. He dropped his second target. His caught his third target for a four-yard gain. That happened with more than eight minutes to go in the second quarter. Harrison wasn’t targeted again the rest of the game.
Listen as Dave Caban, Kevin Szafraniec, and I try to make sense of Harrison’s debut on the RotoViz Fantasy Football Report
How Did Harrison Fail?
What’s perhaps most surprising about this performance is that Harrison was on the field a lot. He played more snaps (55, good for a 90% snap rate) than any other Arizona skill position player apart from Kyler Murray. As he was on the field for almost every play, he also ran more routes than any other Cardinals receiver. It certainly wasn’t the case that Arizona was bringing the rookie along slowly — they too were expecting big things from their first-round pick. Harrison either struggled to get open or wasn’t on the same page as his quarterback often. (This was notably the case on a play on Arizona’s final drive in which Harrison got wide open behind the defense for what would have been a sure TD, but Murray never saw him.) Whatever the reason, I’m curious about other first-round rookies who underperformed in their Week 1 NFL debut. How bad was Harrison’s performance from a historical perspective?
