In the lead-up to any professional sports draft, it’s fairly commonplace for outlets to offer some player comparisons for some of the top draft prospects to give fans a good context for a player’s level of talent and style of play. Turns out, those comparisons are a lot easier to make when one of the top prospects is the literal offspring of a Hall of Fame player.
This week, The Ringer released its 2024 NFL Draft guide with player analysis and scouting reports from Danny Kelly. As part of the analysis, the draft guide includes a “shades of” section for each top player. In most cases, this serves as a simple player comparison. In some cases, it’s much more abstract. For example, the analysis for Caleb Williams was that he gave shades of “that accordion guy who plays Vivaldi,” whatever that means.
But for former Ohio State Buckeyes star wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr., the player comparison could not have been more spot on.
Harrison comes in at No. 3 on the draft guide’s big board, and the “shades of” section on his analysis had a pretty cheeky comparison: “Like if Marvin Harrison Sr. had a really tall son.”
Obviously, this isn’t a hypothetical – it’s what actually happened. At 6-foot-4 and 205 pounds, Marvin Harrison Jr. is the much taller and bigger son of Hall of Fame wide receiver Marvin Harrison Sr., who was listed at six feet tall and 185 pounds.
We’ll have to see whether Harrison Jr.’s production in the NFL matches his father’s, but it’s hard to go wrong with this comparison.
