NFL Draft Prospects 2019: Wide Receiver - Marquise Brown, Oklahoma
At 130 pounds without academic qualifications, Marquise Brown had to attend junior college while working multiple jobs and keeping his grades up to earn a chance. The young man who was shortly nicknamed “Hollywood” decided to join Oklahoma’s wide-open attack as a four-star juco transfer and immediately made his mark.
With Dede Westbrook heading to the pro level, eventual Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield started to spread the wealth a little more, but quickly found a new favorite target in Brown, who caught 57 passes for 1095 yards and seven touchdowns.
Last season with another Heisman winner in Kyler Murray he bettered his numbers by over 200 yards and three scores despite missing a game. Now, he follows his cousin Antonio Brown to the NFL draft.
At 5’9”, 166 pounds, Brown definitely lacks some size, but he makes up for it with electrifying speed and mind-boggling playmaking ability.
With that sports car-like acceleration, he can just fly by defenders, win with stutter-moves or beat safeties across their face on post routes, but he can also manufacture YAC opportunities by getting the ball in his hands on quick screens or crossing routes.
Brown just made big play after big play for the Sooners last campaign. His start-stop ability is off the charts and when the ball is in the air, he tracks it over his shoulder very well. Brown does a good job pacing his strides to let the ball drop into the bucket while forcing defenders to go through him if they want to get there, forcing multiple pass interference calls that way in the Big XII championship game versus Texas.
He can also use that little arm-bar to press away the defender and open space for the ball to get through, plus he is tougher at the catch point than you’d expect from a guy his size.
Once Brown has the ball in his hands, he has another gear to lose any defenders in reach. He can take blows and stay on his feet as well as spin and twist out of the hands of tacklers.
He is nicknamed Hollywood not only because that’s the name of his hometown, but also his style of play. Brown can just stick his foot in the ground and cut across the entire field or burn angles running towards the sideline.
The suddenness of some of his jukes in the open field is just sick. He uses some backwards jukes and almost dips underneath the grasps of some tacklers. Playing at around 160 to 170 pounds, Brown doesn’t give the defenders a lot of area to grab and he makes some basketball type moves in the open field, almost looking like crossovers.
639 of his yards last season came after the catch on a bonkers 8.5 YAC/reception. He also put up a ridiculous 3.56 yards per route run in 2018.
The extremely thin frame raises some durability concerns and could be a problem when facing equally athletically gifted cornerbacks, who can push him into the boundary the way I saw former Sooner Dede Westbrook get handled by Ohio State for example.
Brown doesn’t have the most natural hands, especially to bring in fastballs, and dropped a combined 14 passes over the last two years. He also doesn’t give you a lot in contested catch situations and is content with going out of bounds on some plays.
Brown wasn’t asked to block a lot for OU, instead, drawing defensive backs with outside release. While you constantly see what he can do with the ball in his hands, Brown wasn’t used at all as a return man at Oklahoma.
Brown is so much like a DeSean Jackson or a Tyler Lockett, when it comes to guys that you want to buy time for as a quarterback, because you know they will get behind the defense eventually; or if you just hold onto the ball long enough to get to him on a crosser, he will make something happen with it.
Unfortunately Hollywood doesn’t bring you that extra value as a punt returner like those other guys do to give you a big play that way, or at least he didn’t do it for the Sooners. However, he should continue to burn people at the next level because he has the explosive feet to release against press and rare speed, while being a nightmare to bring down once he has the ball.
Grade: Late first