0:00For Terrace Marshall to come out and take 82.4% of his sample snaps outside and 81% on the line of scrimmage, >> Wow.
0:08>> that is about as big boy X receiver as it gets for a rookie. Terrace Marshall is certainly their number one guy.
0:13You're playing him 80% outside and and on the line of scrimmage, those two in combination. That's actually not good.
0:20>> Look at the release.
0:21>> There's your separation.
0:23>> Great route.
0:23>> Stutter and go gets by clean.
0:24>> That is unbelievable.
0:26>> Maybe the greatest catch I've ever seen.
0:30>> Terrace Marshall last year, 122 targets, 70 receptions, 1,014 yards, and seven touchdowns, a 57.4%
0:41catch rate. Terrace Marshall, you talk about playing big boy football, this guy was playing X and playing a lot of X
0:49receiver uh for the Carolina Panthers.
0:51Where does he fit in in the pantheon of X receivers? What did you see, Matt Harmon?
0:56>> Yeah, I mean, really good uh results from year one, obviously, playing as that X receiver. So impressive, right?
1:04You think about these guys who like need role cater and this that and the other.
1:06Uh for Terrace Marshall to come out and take 82.4% of his sample snaps outside and 81% on the line of scrimmage,
1:14>> Wow.
1:15>> that is about as big boy X receiver as it gets for a rookie.
1:19Um now, I think that you know, I say this a lot, like if you are playing your guy uh your number one
1:26guy, which right now Terrace Marshall is certainly their number one guy. You're playing him 80% outside and and on the line of
1:33scrimmage, those two in combination.
1:35That's actually not good. You you don't want to be using your number one like that. You want to be moving this guy
1:40around the formation. And I do think that Carolina knows that. Uh Dave Canales talked about that down the stretch. Uh remember he had that massive
1:48game it against the Atlanta Falcons, I believe in week 11, was Terrace Marshall.
1:54And part of that was he was moving into the slot a little bit more.
1:58Um and you know, of course, because we got to always criticize everything, the first ones were like, "Why didn't he do
2:02this sooner? Why didn't he do that sooner?" I'm like, yo, look at some of the receivers they were running out at the beginning of the
2:07year because Jaylen Coker was not healthy. We're talking about like Hunter Renfrow.
2:10>> Yeah.
2:11>> Guess what? Hunter Renfrow can only, especially coming back from being retired, medically retired for a year.
2:17>> like for over a year, man. It was crazy.
2:19>> Yeah.
2:20Like he can only play in the slot. He could only play in the slot and when he was in his best, you know, shape.
2:27Obviously at this point, that's the guy that has to play in the slot. That's why Coker being healthier in the back half
2:32of the year was so valuable for Tetero because it allowed him to get some reps from the inside off the line of
2:37scrimmage. And again, very similar to the conversation we had with Emeka Egbuka, when they take Ted Harris in the third round, I think this team taking
2:43Chris Braswell in the third round also sends me another signal potentially about what they might do, you know, with Tetero McMillan moving
2:51around a little bit more. And I know for a fact that Tetero wants to move around a little bit more. I talked to him for
2:57the at the Super Bowl this past year, and he he's he's bringing up like, "Look at Look at what the Rams do. Look at
3:03what Jaxon Smith-Njigba does, you know, like moving all around, getting routes from the backfield." You know, he's a you got to put your number one
3:11guy in a position to make plays and and part of that is moving him around. So, while it was impressive that he does
3:19this, you know, outside, on ball for over 80% of his snaps in the first season of his NFL career, and oh, by the
3:26way, turned in really positive results against press man coverage while doing that, very impressive.
3:32Don't think it has to be this way going forward for him. I think we can I think we can we can move him around a little
3:37bit. But But when we're looking at this, and again, the to to go to into the success rates here, >> Yeah.
3:42>> 72.3 against man, 72nd percentile, just under 73% against press, 70th percentile.
3:49>> Yeah, it's good.
3:50>> That's That's great. That's great for a rookie receiver playing uh that much X.
3:54There are holes in his game. We'll talk about some of those holes that do need to get better.
3:58>> Sure.
3:59>> But, I mean when you're just talking about like the pantheon of X receivers, and again, that like pure X bucket, I don't think he has
4:06to belong to that like Tee Higgins pure X bucket. I think he's much more, you know, of the family of receivers like
4:13the the Drake Londons, the the the the the and I don't think I I think London is better. I I do I did like London
4:20better as a prospect and I think London showed a little bit more early in his career, but we'll see what happens. You
4:24know, Michael Pittman is another player that's like a comparison to this where they don't have to just play X receiver, but they're these big guys who separate
4:30better than you think. Michael Thomas, Keenan Allen, some of these same type of players uh that that that are just big
4:36receivers that run good routes, don't have to just play X.
4:40>> When you take a look at um his best route, it was by far his dig route.
4:4491.5% success rate on the dig. Matt Harmon This is absolutely bananas. Uh I actually didn't look it up historically.
4:53This has got to be up there, though. Uh 17.5% route participation. This was his most run route, and it was by far his
5:01most successful route, as well. Very impressive number there when we're talking about an inside uh in-breaking dig.
5:08>> Yeah, Tutu Atwell Mcmillan Now, you mentioned 91.5% success rate on the dig routes. I did look it up in the
5:14historical database. That is the sixth best >> Amazing.
5:17>> success rate uh on dig routes I currently have in the full RP database.
5:22So, >> As a rookie.
5:23>> As a rookie.
5:24>> Amazing.
5:25>> Playing big boy X receiver. Yeah, uh pretty impressive stuff there for our guy Tutu Atwell Mcmillan. And by the way, uh this is another thing from our
5:34conversation at the Super Bowl. I asked him, you know, as I often do with these guys like to ask them, "What are the
5:39What's your best You know, what's your favorite route to run?" He sat there, thought about it. He said, "I like to
5:43run dig routes." I was like, "Well, good good news, pal. That's your best route, buddy. [laughter] Good news, buddy. And at that point, I
5:50actually only had the Rookie Report data cuz this full profile wasn't done. The number is actually better than it was in
5:56the Rookie Report by the end of the season, and I think some of that was cuz they started moving him around a little
6:01bit more. And yeah, like he showed a lot of ability, and this was true in his prospect profile, too. This was a
6:05strength of his prospect route chart was the dig routes and some of those bigger in-breakers.
6:11You know, that was obviously a big part of what made him such an appealing a guy that went in the top 10, a guy that I
6:15had as a tier two receiver prospect, a really high-ranking player, was that ability to, you know, sink your hips and cleanly separate.
6:23I mean, the people talk about this guy like he doesn't separate and he's he's running dig routes at an almost 92%
6:27success rate. Come on, give me a break.
6:30He clearly wins there. The other guys that are above him in terms of the historical database, Mike Evans, Brandon Aiyuk, DeVonta 2023
6:40Brandon Aiyuk, of course, DeVonta Smith, Deonte Johnson, shout out, AJ Brown.
6:47Like that's that's it. That's those are the guys we're talking about there in terms of who's better than him on these
6:53dig routes. So, yeah, the strength of his game, he knows it's the strength of his game. Let's keep running those dig routes for Teterow and
7:01McMillan. That That was pretty cool for him to say that. So, yeah. Also, by the way, not just not just the dig
7:07route, which was super impressive, 91.7% success rate on comebacks.
7:13This was something I know for a fact I talked about in his prospect profile, where he was And again, this is crazy for a
7:21guy that is 6'4, every bit of like 6'4 and 210 plus pounds. I believe he said he's actually head going to be go going
7:30to be head bigger going into this season.
7:33So, we'll see we'll see about that when we come back to one other point that he does need to improve on, but yeah, for his ability to
7:39sink his hips against man coverage and and work on those comebacks is just sick. super impressive uh for somebody of his size. So, yeah, I mean, to be
7:49pushing over 90% on two what I would definitely consider to be big boy routes, really impressive for Mcmillan. I also felt like when you
7:59take a look at his route participation, right? Like so much of it is okay, 17.5% dig, 14.2% curl route, 15.3% slant.
8:08These are all in breakers, right? And to me, it felt like Dave Canales was trying to work around his quarterback. Right?
8:16Like Bryce Young doesn't have that drive to get that ball out there um to the from sideline to sideline, right? So, when you look at a 4.5%
8:26comeback rate for Tiderow Mcmillan, despite the fact that he's just crushing everyone out there, I I to me that indicates less about the coaching staff
8:34and more about the quarterback that they have there and and them trying to protect Bryce Young just a little bit.
8:39>> Sure. And he obviously Bryce Young's a tough variable here.
8:44Um you know, he's definitely had some moments has Bryce Young, but just statistically, the product has not been good. Like it's
8:51not been good for Bryce Young, you know?
8:52And I he's in in in no way has he been really like been an above average starting quarterback.
9:00I don't think you can I don't think you can make the case. Like there's been there has been little moments even um
9:06even in in this past season. Like that Falcons game I mentioned for By the way, >> the Falcons at times have been a you
9:11know, garbo defense. Last year, they were really hard defense to play against, a really good unit.
9:16>> [snorts] >> Um and and and this is that was one of Bryce Young's best games. He was ripping it in that one, you know? But then uh
9:24didn't really continue that momentum throughout the course of his So, like he has had games, he's had moments, but he hasn't strung it all together yet.
9:31>> I think what's interesting, too, and again, this comes back to the Brazel selection.
9:36I think I might have mentioned this uh to you when they took Brazil and like what are they kind of building here in
9:41Carolina other than the the one of the biggest wide receiver rooms you've maybe ever seen.
9:47Um >> Straight basketball team out there, man.
9:48It's crazy.
9:49>> Uh even Coker, who's listed like 6'3" something He's like 6'1" and but over 210 lbs. Like he is he's a big receiver
9:56in his own right, kind of a bigger slot, which is of course why I really like him. But um if you just
10:02look at the uh receiver room, it's these massive guys. I also think it's going to be one of those rooms where they can
10:08really spread this thing out. And that I think is really interesting with Bryce Young. In 2024, Bryce Young averaged 11.2 yards per
10:18completion, 7.3 adjusted yards per attempt at with a .11 EPA per dropback.
10:25Really solid numbers for Bryce Young specifically out of empty. All of those numbers were out of empty. So when it's full, just spread the field.
10:32And he had 96 attempts out of empty in 2024, 88 last year.
10:38Which remember, Bryce Young was benched in 2024. He didn't play the full season.
10:42So he had more attempts out of empty than he did in 25 when he didn't play um you know, the full He played a full
10:49season 25. He he didn't play in 24. So just to show that they kind of went away from it a little bit there. Um 7.7 yards
10:56per attempt in 24, 5.6 last year. Passer ratings down. Everything's down.
11:01I think again, part of that was the options they had to spread the field last year. Not very good. We haven't
11:07mentioned the name Xavier Legette yet, but he's a guy that has He needs role catering, right? Like he he He flopped
11:14in the X receiver position in 2024 as a rookie when they moved him there after Deonte Johnson was traded. Like he can't
11:21play X receiver despite the size. Like he needs to be off-ball and kind of movement route guy.
11:26You know, and Brazil I think might he might push him to be the third receiver there, you know? And I think but that's
11:30where it's important to get all these guys out on the route because Coker is a guy who can play outside but
11:36is a big slot. The guy needs role catering. You want to get Terrace Marshall McMillan inside.
11:42You need kind of an Dave Canales is a former receiver coach himself. Talked about Brazil as like, "Yeah, his best thing is he's going to
11:48stretch the field and open things up for other guys." Like he's literally talking about him as a sacrificial type player in a way.
11:54>> Yeah.
11:55>> I think and he'll obviously add value in his own right, but I think Bryce Young being able to spread the field with
11:59these guys like that's probably the best path to get whatever there is to get out of Bryce Young. 9.5 air yards per
12:06attempt out of empty in 2024. Like spread the field and push it on these digs and in-breakers to all of these
12:12guys who run those routes really well.
12:15I think they can almost be the team that goes away from the trend right now, which is like heavy personnel packages,
12:20multiple tight ends, all that. I think this team might have like the highest three-plus receiver on the field usage, which which will be interesting for
12:28McMillan. How much is he able to back dominate targets in in that regard cuz there again, there are some ways he
12:33needs to get better.
12:35>> Yeah.
12:35>> Um but but yeah, I just I think that Brazil selection really had me like my gears turning about some of what they
12:41might do with Bryce Young from a spread quarterback standpoint and how that will I think from an alignment standpoint suit Terrace Marshall McMillan's game.
12:48>> It is very interesting because a 91.5% success rate on the dig, you would think, "Okay, well, he must be great on
12:55all these in-breaking routes." Not the case. And again, if we're talking about areas where Terrace Marshall McMillan needs to improve, um it's it's
13:02interesting. Let me just lay it out for the listeners out there. If you are an ex-receiver, you got to have some uh you
13:10know, some kind of skill getting long, right? Where he had a 54% success rate on the nine. That's slightly below average. I honestly, he's knocking on
13:18the door of being average, but still not a strength for Terrace Marshall McMillan. Um and then you'd like to have some kind of combination of like a slant
13:27route and either the curl or comeback or dig, right? So, something in that intermediate area. He's got that with the dig and the out, right? Like he's
13:35he's he's fine. And the comeback. Um but 70.1% success rate on the slant again, when you're talking about X receiver, you want that short What's
13:45that short area that you want to dominate? It's got to be the slant.
13:48You're threatening vertical, you take one cut inside, and you go run that slant route. Um 70 70 Let's give him 71.
13:5571% success rate on the slant, Matt, is it's below what you would want. And again, I think the benchmark for a good
14:02slant route um is 80%. Uh you know, we can mess around 76 77% if you do other things really well, but 71%
14:12clearly an area of need, I think, for Tedarrell McMillian. He's got to get open short.
14:17>> Yeah, and I think there there's like two different issues here really to me in my opinion.
14:22Um one, I think for some of the slant route stuff, he does he needs to be a little bit more like decisive at the break
14:29points in in the quick game specifically against zone coverage, like finding those windows and just kind of settling into it. I think is is a something he
14:36can get better at. I mentioned the good numbers against man press. And this is obviously this is just generally true of
14:40like non-elite X receivers is they're going to be better against press man than they are against zone. You just think about some of the coverages you
14:46can crack from the perimeter. Um so, he's below 78% against zone coverage, 40th percentile, not terrible. And like I said, some of these non-elite X
14:55receivers you're going to finish in that bucket for you know, most of your career. Uh but that is one area where I
15:00think he probably does, you know, need to get better uh is kind of working that quick game against zone coverage. So,
15:06that's like represented in the slant route. Now, for the dig and post or excuse me, the post and the nine route, which are below
15:14average, that I do think specifically the nine route just might be like a part of his game I don't know to know want to say
15:21forever, but I like unless he takes big big leaps, it's just might be part of his game. Like this was part of his game as a prospect. Like his
15:30where he didn't separate consistently is on like just the pure vertical go routes. Now, obviously, you can be a big playmaker and and make big plays without
15:41winning on the nine route, okay? Like this guy's going to make a ton of big plays with that freaking dig route
15:48success rate we talk about. He's going to make it especially cuz he can run after the catch a little bit. He's
15:53a little bit better with the ball in his hands than you think.
15:55He's going to make big plays just on that, okay? Like that's not something I'm too too concerned about. But um that
16:00nine route success rate I do think is going to be something that probably haunts him a little bit just cuz he
16:04doesn't have that that final gear, right? To really pull away deep like the true elite straight-line speed I don't think is a part of his game. Now, where
16:13you can offset that is being an elite contested catch receiver or a great contested catch receiver. And that is where I think Mcmillan left me a little
16:22bit wanting as a rookie in compared to a guy like Drake London who I think Drake London like you ask Drake London to dunk
16:28on somebody in the tight in the tight coverage. I'm only comparing these guys cuz they're off compared players.
16:33>> Yeah.
16:33>> I I think you ask Drake London to dunk on someone in contested catch situations, even if he doesn't cleanly separate all the time down the field
16:40from an explosive speed standpoint, he can do that. He's a he's a ball winner.
16:44He's a bucket getter in that way.
16:46Mcmillan just under 18% contested target rate and he caught 66.7% of them. Not not terrible by any means, but not quite in
16:56that like upper echelon when we're talking about reception perception charting. He dropped 7.4% of his sample targets. Like he just he he left some
17:04plays on the field at the catch point that you want him to get better at. That you want him to take that next step in
17:10his second season. Which by the way, he totally he can. I I'm confident in that based on the player that I watched um in
17:17college. Like I I think he can get back to that and we know that drops and contested catch rate are not the
17:21stickiest stats year-to-year.
17:23But I just think he needs to kind of work on being like a finisher, tightening up the details when like tracking the ball into his hands in
17:30tight coverage. Like I said, not overly concerning, but that's the way that you can offset like the lack of what I think
17:35might always be a little bit of lack of separation down the field on the go routes.
17:40>> That being said, I just he there's got to be an improvement in the slant route area. I mean, if we can get to like 75%,
17:4776, 77%, then we're really cooking with gas, right? Because he just And And you know why I'm hyper-fixated on this, too, Matt? It's because man, in
17:55this offense, he gets You talk about role catering? It's the exact opposite.
18:00I mean, he he gets no layup looks. 0.4% route participation on the screens?
18:07What?
18:084.1% route That's one. I mean, we're talking about a 4.1 route participation on flat flat route. Like, it's just So,
18:17less than 5% of his routes come on the flat and the screen. Uh That is that's mind-boggling for a player who is truly your number one
18:28um wide receiver. Now, to put that in perspective, like somebody like Emeka Egbuka, right? Like we just talked about Emeka Egbuka. Um 3% screen, 4.7% flat.
18:38So, now we're like 7, 8-ish percent, right? Like Luther Burden, who we're going to be talking about soon, double digits. Right? So,
18:46Tetairoa McMillan having less than 5% of his routes come on the flat and screen, which again, these are generated to get
18:53you the football, uh I I think that's just again, if you want to get the ball short and quick, you got
19:00to improve on that slant.
19:02>> Yeah, and again, I'm going to do one more time, but like Drake London in 2024, um you know, he was a guy that was a
19:0910.6% slant route rate. So, not a lot.
19:12Flat routes 2.7% um but like slant route success rate 85.7% you know um think about a guy like Michael Thomas who like as I mentioned
19:22is probably if we're talking about like this family of wide receivers >> Mhm.
19:25>> you know, I think Michael Thomas might be like the top peak version if not then like Drake London is right there. Then I
19:30think it's a step down to the McMillans and then maybe like a step down to you know the Michael Pittmans kind of like
19:36those type of guys and then you know Denzel Boston from this past year's class I think is in this family of wide
19:41receivers. I think Jayden Higgins another year two receivers like the lower end range of this wide receivers.
19:46>> Right.
19:47>> But yeah, I mean like you think about the two guys that are at the top of that archetype I'm talking about here Drake
19:52London and Michael Pittman I mean Michael Thomas those guys just hit you on inbreakers quick inbreakers over and over and over again. Now in fairness to
19:59Tatero McMillan this Drake London 2024 season that I'm quoting here was the first year where he was not used as an
20:0680% on ball outside receiver as he was Drake London in the first two years of of his career in Arthur Smith's offense
20:14when he was still good on on these routes don't get me wrong but like obviously that was a little bit of role
20:19catering and that's what I'm talking about like Drake London is not and I'm not By the way neither was Michael Thomas. People still remember Michael
20:25Thomas as like oh he was this big slot receiver in the New Orleans Saints offense under Sean Payton. He was not. He played a ton
20:32a ton of outside on the line of scrimmage player. He just ran a bunch of short routes cuz by the time he was in
20:37his prime Drew Brees couldn't push the football down the field. So like everybody remembers him as the slant boy moniker. A lot of that was not because
20:44of Michael Thomas's limitations it was actually cuz like Drew Brees was his arm was falling off at that point. Still good quarterback cuz he's better than
20:51everybody else up here but you know this this was starting to fall off at that point. Anyway so um again like that role
20:58catering a little bit just from formation standpoint just even a touch like Drake London I mentioned earlier on in the Abuka profile this 24 2024 season
21:07he's in the slot between, you know, depending on what you're looking at, uh, you know, the routes versus the snaps, 37% to 39%. That's all we're talking
21:17about here. We're talking about going from 17% or whatever it is for Tetairoa to maybe somewhere around 35% to 37% and I think,
21:27again, to come back to the Chris Brazil point, that's where I did think that pick was interesting because >> Mhm.
21:32>> could you have like two sacrificial guys on the outside in Leggett and and and Bra- and Brazil and then have, you know, Coker and McMillan
21:42operating on the interior in these empty sets? I think it's possible. By the way, if you're going true true empty, >> Mhm.
21:49>> you're going to have like three slot options at that point. Three guys that are not lined up on the boundary. So,
21:55>> Yeah.
21:55>> uh, there's ways that McMillan, I 100% I said in the profile, I'll say it again, he does need to get better in the quick
22:01game. He does need to get better. But, I also think from a role catering standpoint, there's something to be done there as well.
