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The original was posted on /r/nfl by /u/JokerDeSilva10 on 2024-09-14 08:33:45+00:00.
A comparatively brief discussion post. I’ve seen people talking about Marvin Harrison Jr.'s somewhat disappointing speed in his debut game, which - listen, obviously given my flair I hope he turns out to be a bust, but it was literally one game and sometimes stuff is just fluky. I’ll believe it’s a problem when we have multiple games of him struggling.
That being said, while I don’t believe this is the label he had coming out of college specifically, it does remind me - as I’ve seen others mention - of the great “contested catch” WRs who were always winning jump balls and physical battles. Unfortunately, two of the names with that designation in recent years include N’Keal Harry and Laquon Treadwell, who were both major disappointments on an NFL level. The truism these days seem to be that if you’re in college football and you have to keep winning contested balls on a consistent basis because you’re not making separation, then you lack the speed, quickness, or route running sharpness to make it at the next level.
All of this to ask: were there any cases of guys in the college level who were great at contested catches and fighting for yards, but then managed to maintain that level in the NFL? Or is this something that has pretty consistently been doomed to failure once making that transition? It does seem to be a decent red flag, but I’m wondering how much of it is a few big name recent first round busts vs. actual long-term reality, and I don’t remember any exceptions off the top of my head.