Ravens Week 1 player spotlight: Marquise Brown

With the 2019 NFL season finally here there is a handful of players fans are excited to see on the field, but this week we’re going to focus on one as our Raven to spotlight. This week it’s Marquise Brown

Marquise Brown: I’ll give it to you… this is not a surprise at all. I’m sure every mildly invested Ravens fan is dying to see the speedster on the field. The reason I chose Hollywood over the other players is because of his lack of participation during camp so I’m intrigued to see how he’s going to perform on one of the biggest days of his life.

Brown is a player that went from working at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California while attending community college to starting his first NFL game as the teams first round draft pick. It’s almost impossible not to be rooting for this guy and his play in the third preseason game showed us a glimpse of what he could do.

With Hollywood getting minimal reps in the offseason I’m not sure how much playing time he’s going to get in week one but according to coach John Harbaugh Marquise Brown is a “full-go” this week. If Hollywood is truly at a “full-go” I expect some fireworks from this offense. The combined speed between Lamar Jackson, Marquise Brown, Justice Hill, and even Miles Boykin is going to be dangerous and incredibly hard to predict.

With so many offensive distractions it’ll be hard to keep track of a player with flash-like quickness and if the defender has to hesitate for even a second (which they tend to do when playing a read option offense), Hollywood will be on his way to the end zone for six.

If I were the coaching staff I would take it a little aggressive with Brown and try to force feed him a few catches to get his blood flow going then I’d send him deep and go for the kill shot late in the first quarter to set the tone. I don’t want the Ravens to coddle him like they did to Breshad Perriman because I believe  Brown is much more than that.

This may seem a bit premature but I saw more promise from Hollywood in the third preseason game than I did from Perriman in any game. His catching is what stood out to me because he didn’t catch anything with his body and that’s something you love to see from a wide receiver. Another thing I saw was a glimpse of his insane acceleration when he ran a stutter step go route on Eagles cornerback Sidney Jones which would have been a touchdown if McSorley saw him.

Hollywood was the star at Oklahoma (no pun intended) so he knows what it takes to perform when the lights are on him and that’s something Perriman failed to do. If the Ravens treat Marquise Brown like the play-maker he is then Baltimore will see their first homegrown star at wide receiver.