Why the Detroit Lions Need to Worry about Ravens WR Marquise Brown

Anytime a wide receiver like Marquise Brown of the Baltimore Ravens has a near six-minute highlight reel from the 2020 NFL season, the Detroit Lions need to worry about him.

“Hollywood,” which is his nickname, also has an additional eight minutes of highlights from his college days back playing at Oklahoma.

Yeah, I would definitely say the Lions and their last place coverage grade are trembling at the thought. 

Said another way, Detroit has given up a walloping 538 yards through the air so far this season.

In both Brown’s college and pro highlight reels, he shows the kind of speed that can light it up and separate deep. He also shows a knack for finding soft spots in coverages underneath.

Brown is a playmaker with a flare for the dramatic.

If there is a concern it would be his drops and his targeted to reception ratio. Since his NFL career began in 2019, Brown has been targeted 187 times and he has managed to only come up with only 116 of those. 

Outside of that the real concern, at least for this game against Detroit is their secondary. Let’s just say this, Brown will have his opportunities.

It is only Week 3 of the 2021 NFL regular season and already Detroit is down two of their main corners on their depth chart -- Jeff Okudah (lost in week one) and Ifeatu Melifonwu (lost in week two). 

Now, the starting cornerback opposite Amani Oruwariye becomes Bobby Price.

Price was an undrafted free agent college safety, who was moved to corner where he saw action in 2020 on special teams in two games. Lions’ coaches are said to be intrigued by his combination of size and speed, now that fascination will be put to the test.

Behind Price is another intriguing and physical undrafted rookie from this past draft, A.J. Parker.

Jerry Jacobs, who sits behind Oruwariye on the depth chart, was also undrafted. Veteran Daryl Worley is buried on the depth chart behind all of them.

See the overall theme here? A plethora of undrafted free agents. Brown, the former first-round draft pick, is a 5-foot-9, 180 pound speedster who has been clocked at 4.32 seconds in the 40-yard-dash. That kind of speed is like Federal Express when it comes to football.

In his career, Brown has 116 receptions for 1,535 yards (13.2 yard-per-catch average) and 17 touchdowns.

I repeat, 17 touchdowns.

Worry?

Yeah, I would say so. Add in the fact Baltimore quarterback Lamar Jackson is the one pulling the trigger and then mix in the sub-par performances and abilities of Detroit safeties Tracy Walker and Will Harris, and this is actually is a recipe for disaster. 

Walker and Harris are consistently a ‘day late and a dollar short,’ helping out on coverage and they are anything but playmakers.

For a receiver like Brown, who has that knack for finding and exploiting soft spots in coverages, that has got to be like music in his headphones.

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