Dallas Cowboys Draft: 7 Wide Receivers for 7 Rounds
Terrace Marshall Jr, LSU
Value: Great
If you’ve seen my latest mock draft, Marshall Jr makes an appearance in the second round. (To be fair, the goal of that mock was to trade up and draft the wide receiver.) Now I didn’t have to trade up to grab the “forgotten” third piece of the electric wide receiver trio from the 2019 LSU Championship team.
Marshall would be the fourth option in an offense featuring Amari Cooper, Michael Gallup, CeeDee Lamb. At this point, he’d probably like to be something better than a WR3, but if he waits a year his aspirations could easily come to fruition.
At 6-foot-3, 205 pounds he is a taller and more explosive version of the Dallas Cowboys’ own Michael Gallup. On the 2019 National Champion team, Marshall was a very good third option for Joe Burrow grabbing 46 completions for 671 yards and 13 touchdowns. As the only starting receiver to return to school the following season, he grabbed another 48 completions for 731 yards and 10 touchdowns.
Marshall returned to a worse quarterback situation, as the clear cut number one option, and exceeded his previous season statistics while playing five fewer games. There was clear improvement in his game in 2020 and he did so with worse supporting offensive play. Hopefully, this lends itself to an easy projection to the next level.
He possesses good athletic ability displaying good acceleration and foot speed to challenge DBs leverage out of release and the route stem. He understands how to manipulate the DBs in phase with solid foot and hip fakes in his breaks to generate separation quickness in the intermediate and deep middle areas of the field.
His competitive toughness can be a hit or miss as he doesn’t display consistent aggression but he does display the body control to adjust to balls in the air and good hands to grab passes and land in bounds. He will suffer from concentration drops especially in the short areas of the field; there had to be some give.
Marshall’s skill set is currently similar to what Gallup’s coming out of college. Gallup was one of the best deep threats in college and so was Marshall. The Cowboys ask Gallup to win vertically as an outside X or Z receiver and he has consistently shown the ability to do that. If he only does wear the star for one more year, then Marshall can fill the same role with hopefully similar production. The tiger gets one year as WR4 before he can become WR2/3. This fit REALLY couldn’t be better if we tried.