Top Five Receivers in the 2024 NFL Draft: December Edition
Photo Credit: Adam Cairns / Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK
Behind quarterback, wide receiver may well be the most important position in the modern NFL. It’s a passing league these days, and a good receiving corps is a necessity for success. If your team has a bad receiving corps, your squad’s ceiling is probably capped at “fringe playoff team.” If your team matches that description, you’re in luck! The 2024 receiver class has legit potential to be the best we’ve ever seen; All kinds of shapes and sizes of receivers to be had, and this class is so deep that plenty of players who would be first-round picks in other years will be available on day 2. It is a great year to need a receiver- or two. These five players are the cream of the crop.
Marvin Harrison Jr., Ohio State
Photo Credit: David Dermer, AP Photo
Duh.
There’s very little I can say about Harrison that hasn’t already been said, but that won’t stop me from trying. You know about his ability. You know about his dad. Likewise, you know about his domination of his sport. However, Harrison is such a brilliant player that those things bear repeating.
Marvin Harrison Jr. Is the best wide receiver prospect of at least the last decade, but that wasn’t always a foregone conclusion. Don’t get me wrong, as the son of an NFL legend and a four-star recruit, Harrison arrived on campus in 2021 with plenty of fanfare. But when he got to Columbus, he was behind three of the best receivers his university has ever produced, as well as a slew of other, even more acclaimed recruits.
Then came 2022. Harrison, stepping in as the team’s top target, proceeded to destroy defenses on a weekly basis. He ended up as CJ Stroud’s top target and won the Biletnikoff, along with a plethora of other accolades. This past season, even without his top QB, Harrison has dominated enough to be a finalist for the Biletnikoff and Heisman trophies. As crazy as it sounds, given the talent they’ve put out at the position, Harrison is the first receiver in Buckeyes history to have multiple 1,000 yard seasons. Simply put, this player has put out two of the greatest seasons we’ve ever seen from a college receiver.
The thing about Harrison’s strengths and weaknesses is that… he doesn’t really have weaknesses. It’s more like “strengths and things he will probably be good at eventually.” There are so many things he does well that his floor is higher than any other players in the class, with his ceiling being borderline limitless. The route running is elite. The separation is elite. The ball skills are elite. The ball tracking is elite. The YAC is elite. The athleticism is elite. He catches everything, whether or not there’s someone in his face. He can separate from literally anyone across from him with ease, with his extremely advanced route tree. Oh, and the 4.3 speed doesn’t hurt either. His profile fits more for a player that’s on the smaller side for receivers, but he’s 6’4 and 205 pounds! Seriously, I think the only disappointing thing about Marvin Harrison Jr. is that he’s not ten pounds heavier, because then we’d have another Calvin Johnson on our hands.
The cherry on top for Harrison is his leadership. His tape is littered with unselfish displays of blocking, and his media appearances depict a mature, wise young man who will be a leader in any NFL locker room from day one. It’s almost like he’s had a major figure in his life who played in the league! I can’t say enough positive things about this player; He’s a pro bowl NFL receiver who just so happens to still be in college.
But you knew that already.
Shades of: Davante Adams, Julio Jones
2. Malik Nabers, Louisiana State
Gus Stark/ LSU Photo
One of my least favorite things about draft season is comps. I understand why they’re helpful and why the casual fan depends on them, and I still use them to contextualize players. But far, far too many college players get compared to NFL players that they have little in common with, to the point where the practice leads to unfair expectations. Malik Nabers is an exception to this rule, because his play style is very comparable to other great NFL players. Watching his tape is also some of the most fun you can have as a fan of the game.
Malik Nabers is, hands down, the most explosive player in the sport. His combination of speed, ball skills, and stop-and-start ability make him truly impossible to cover. If you’re guarding Nabers, he will run past you, through you, around you and probably over you on his way to 150 yards and a couple of scores. And there’s not much you can do about it. Nabers not only has elite top speed, but his acceleration is such that he gets there from the moment he starts running. This makes him a nightmare on double moves and as a result, he’s a premier deep threat. He’s just as good in the intermediate areas, as he uses his elite separation ability to create space and display his running back-like ability after the catch. Nabers consistently has corners running for their lives trying to cover him, and I don’t expect that to change on Sundays.
This is an overplayed cliché, but I mean it wholeheartedly when I say that in any other draft class, Malik Nabers would be WR1. He has practically every trait necessary of a dominant receiver. His game is tailored perfectly to the spacing of the modern NFL. If your team just misses out on Marvin Harrison on draft day, but takes Nabers instead, you should still be jumping for joy. This is a perennial pro bowler with the potential to be the most electric player in the game. He’s no consolation prize. Don’t believe me? Here you go.
Shades of: DJ Moore, Ja’Marr Chase, a stick of dynamite
3. Rome Odunze, Washington
Steph Chambers/Getty Images
Over the next few months, you’re going to hear a lot about how good this wide receiver class is. You’re going to hear a lot about how many first-round players it has and the depth of the talent this year. But I think the best part about this class is how many different kinds of receivers it has. You’ve got contested catch monsters, elite separators, speed demons, possession receivers, and everything in between. And then you’ve got Rome Odunze, who has a little bit of everything.
Odunze arrived at Washington as a four-star recruit from a heralded Bishop Gorman program in Nevada. He had a quiet start to his career, playing sparingly in his first two years. But when Michael Penix came to town in 2022, everything changed. Odunze was Penix’s go-to guy from day one, and for the last two years they’ve been the single best duo in college football. Odunze has put up back-to-back 1,000 yard seasons, with 1400 yards (and counting!) this year. He’s a finalist for the Biletnikoff, with the other two being Nabers and Harrison.
Odunze is a player that I expect to have a roller coaster draft process, for reasons that aren’t his fault. Odunze is a unique player in that he doesn’t quite play how he looks. He’s 6’3 and 215 pounds, measurables that usually yield dominant catch-point receivers. While I think Odunze is a really good contested catch receiver, I don’t think it’s an elite skill; And with what Odunze excels at, it doesn’t have to be. For as good as he is in 50-50 situations, I think Odunze wins more with instincts and playing off the threat his size creates. I see a player who is brilliant at using his size and speed to get in advantageous positions, and then puts his excellent ball skills to use. He can win anywhere on the field because of his skillset, with the size and strength to be a bully, and the athletic ability to be a big play machine. Unfortunately, I think that Odunze is going to fall victim to stereotypes and what people think he should be rather than what he is. People are going to see his measurables and assume he’s an automatic 50-50 ball player, and when they realize he isn’t, they will sour on him. I still fully expect him to be a top-15 pick come April, but Odunze is the kind of player that often falls victim to unfair narratives. If your team is the one that takes him, don’t fall victim to these narratives. Watch the tape. You’ll be downright giddy afterwards.
Shades of: Keenan Allen, Tim Patrick
4. Keon Coleman, Florida State
Photo Credit: John Raoux, AP Photo
It absolutely infuriates me that I can’t put Keon Coleman any higher than this. I know that’s really dramatic, given I still have him top five in a loaded receiver class, but this is a player who is simply built to steal Connor Hein’s heart. If you know me, you know my weakness for big receivers who can run fast. My favorite receivers of all time are Demaryius Thomas, Courtland Sutton, and Calvin Johnson. I have a type, and Keon Coleman sure fits that type.
Coleman has only been in Tallahassee for a few months, but he’s made a name for himself from the moment he stepped on the field this fall. He transferred in after two years at Michigan State, and went from being a solid player to a brilliant one. Because of how many contributors there are on the FSU offense, his numbers won’t blow you away, but you can make an argument he was the best receiver on the team this season. He immediately wowed with his ball skills and big play ability, and he’s played his way into being a first round receiver.
So why then, is he only fourth on the board? Sadly, Coleman suffers from the same problem a lot of his peers do; As a young player, Coleman lacks polish in a lot of the more subtle areas of the game. His route running is spotty, he needs to have a better feel for zone, and for as insane as some of his catches are, he needs to develop more consistency with his hands. He represents a dilemma we see every year in the draft: College players with electric talent, but a need for time and coaching to become good NFL players. How high those players go depends entirely on how much faith teams have in their coaches. Coleman needs good coaching and patience. He’s not a day one starter, and because of his flaws, his floor is pretty low.
But holy Moses, is the ceiling high.
There are very, very few players in the league with the kind of natural ability that Keon Coleman has. The list of guys in the NFL who can do this is about two or three guys long. This is also patently abnormal. And how many guys Coleman’s size can do this in the return game? Not a bunch!
Coleman’s size, in addition to his movement ability and crazy hands, makes his ceiling as high as anyone in the class. That’s why, despite his shortcomings, I believe in him so much. I know he can become a better route runner because of how fluid he is. I know he can become more consistent with his hands because I see him make sportscenter catches every week. I know he can get better at reading defenses because anyone can! To me, I feel the same way about Keon Coleman as I did about DK Metcalf and George Pickens: If you are a wide receiver coach, and you can't turn this kind of specimen into a good NFL player, you might just be coaching the wrong position.
Shades of: Courtland Sutton, Brandon Lloyd, Duke Zion Williamson
5. Emeka Egbuka, Ohio state
Photo Credit: John Raoux, AP Photo
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but if this was just a different year, Egbuka would be much higher than this. Ohio State’s “other” receiver is a brilliant player in his own right, and it’s been that way for a while. Harrison and Egbuka were part of the same Buckeyes recruiting class, with Egbuka actually being the higher rated recruit. He was a five star coming out of Washington, and a top ten player in the country. He, in a lot of ways, was expected to become the player that Harrison has. But just because Marvin became a demigod doesn’t make Egbuka a bust. Quite the opposite.
His running mate obviously grabs the headlines, but Egbuka has a lot of traits of a top flight NFL receiver. Egbuka is brilliant in a literal and figurative sense. His best trait as a receiver is his knack for finding soft spots in zones and just getting open. Separation is the single most important skill for a receiver to have in this age, and Egbuka already does it at an NFL level. Egbuka’s other calling card is his ability after the catch. He gets to top speed very quickly, and his stocky frame and shiftiness make him hard to bring down. My favorite trait about Egbuka is his smoothness; Nothing looks difficult for him, and there’s very little wasted movement in anything he does. He plays like a former five star.
Unfortunately, Egbuka’s stock has fallen a lot this season. That is mostly due to the injuries he sustained during this season, and the resulting hit on his numbers. Egbuka has also struggled with drops at times throughout his career, which is maybe the biggest negative you can have as a player at his position. Because of this, it’s far from a given Egbuka declares for the draft, but with Ohio State’s asinine pipeline of receiver talent, he has an interesting decision to make. Does he bet on himself and count on impressing during the pre-draft circuit? Or does he go back to school and risk losing ground to another talented group of receivers? Only time will tell, but if Egbuka declares, he’ll have a fan in me.
Shades of: Amon-Ra St. Brown (with the super soldier serum), Puka Nacua
