With the 2023 college football season in full swing, let’s take a look at PFN’s updated 2024 NFL Draft top WR position rankings. There are no changes in the pecking order from Week 6 to Week 7, but we’re learning more about these prospects with every game.
Ranking the Top WRs in the 2024 NFL Draft
Zay Flowers, Josh Downs, and Jordan Addison were promising prospects in the 2023 NFL Draft cycle, along with Quentin Johnston and Jaxon Smith-Njigba. However, many evaluators believed that the WR position in the 2023 class lacked significant blue-chip talent and top-end depth.
Early indications were that the 2024 NFL Draft WR class had what the 2023 class lacked, and the 2023 season has only served to confirm those suspicions. Whatever you need, the 2024 class appears to have it: Size, athleticism, versatility, alpha ability, and more. These are the top WRs of the group.
10) Xavier Legette, South Carolina
Talk about enjoying a breakout season. Xavier Legette is making the most of his fifth year on the field, already setting a career-high in receptions (32), yards (606), and touchdowns (three). The 6’3″, 227-pounder has been unstoppable in relief of teammate Antwane Wells Jr.
Legette has incredible long-strider speed, and he’s also a dominating size threat with great physicality after the catch, an imposing catc4h radius, and surprising throttle variability for his size. His career trajectory isn’t dissimilar from 2023 SEC prospect Cedric Tillman, who went in Round 3 to the Cleveland Browns.
9) Malachi Corley, Western Kentucky
There isn’t much Group of Five representation among the top receiver prospects in the 2024 NFL Draft, but Western Kentucky’s Malachi Corley is making up for that ten-fold.
Corley dominated for the Hilltoppers in 2022, amassing 101 catches for 1,293 yards and 11 touchdowns, and in 2023, he’s coming off an extraordinary eight-catch, 207-yard, three-score outing versus Louisiana Tech.
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Corley is one of the most unique WRs in the 2024 crop, sporting a hyper-dense 5’11”, 210-pound frame. With his burst and contact balance, he’s an elite RAC weapon over the middle of the field and on screen passes.
Corley also has the toughness and physicality to secure contested attempts. Though he can keep refining his game as an independent separator, his ability to explode through space and generate extra yards is invaluable, as he’s shown time and time again this season.
8) Adonai Mitchell, Texas
It’s taken no time whatsoever for Adonai “AD” Mitchell to find a home at Texas. The former Georgia Bulldogs playmaker is on pace to obliterate his previous career highs. The 6’4″, 196-pounder is playing fast, confident, and looks every bit of a solid starter at the next level.
Mitchell has great flexibility and fluidity for someone as lanky as he is, and his strength at the catch point is a major part of his game.
It’s no accident that he ends up wide open on slant routes so often – defenders have to hedge against vertical routes due to Mitchell’s size and speed, but recovering against Mitchell’s releases is extremely difficult.
He offers little to no room for error for defenders with his blend of traits and route-running tricks. We’d like to see him create after the catch and add more bulk to his frame, but Mitchell is a top-50 prospect regardless.
7) Xavier Worthy, Texas
Xavier Worthy is unique. It is highly unusual to come across a wide receiver who weighs only 160 pounds in college or professional football. However, Worthy not only competes at this weight but excels at it.
In 2021, during his first year as a college player, Worthy made an impressive 62 catches for 982 yards and 12 touchdowns, and he sustained his production even with QB uncertainty in 2022.
At 6’1″, Worthy is a long, wiry receiver who can dissect defenses with searing speed and explosiveness. He can destroy coverage and pursuit angles with his long strides, but he also has the snappy flexibility and route-running nuance to keep defenders guessing.
On top of all this, Worthy has a rare sense of timing at the catch point, and if he can cut down on focus drops, Round 1 is assuredly a possibility.
6) Troy Franklin, Oregon
Troy Franklin was one of the primary beneficiaries during Bo Nix’s breakout 2022 season at Oregon. In 2023, the former top-50 recruit has 32 catches for 535 yards and seven touchdowns through five games.
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Franklin has been a deadly weapon this year, with at least 100 yards and a touchdown in all but one game. He can be schemed passes from anywhere – in the formation or off motions. His bristling speed and explosiveness allow him to splice through zones.
At 6’3″, 178 pounds, Franklin is very light, but he has good length and flashes, surprising sink capacity, and stop/start ability for his size. He’s not an advanced route runner yet, with room to add more mass to his frame. That said, Franklin’s natural talent is hard to duplicate.
5) Rome Odunze, Washington
Had he declared for the 2023 NFL Draft, Rome Odunze would have been a first-round candidate on our board. While nabbing 75 catches for 1,145 yards and seven TDs in 2022, Odunze flashed a truly complete skill set.
He has size at 6’3″ and elite catching instincts, and he’s also an incredibly smooth separator who can slither through crowds as a RAC threat.
Odunze is a nuanced route runner with second-nature coordination, who’s fielded comps ranging from Michael Thomas to Keenan Allen from the PFN staff.
Although he doesn’t possess elite burner speed, Odunze’s strong hands, fantastic body control, smooth athleticism, and consistency are tough to beat. He’s been a menace catching passes from Michael Penix Jr. this year and will have a similar impact in the NFL.
4) Emeka Egbuka, Ohio State
If Marvin Harrison Jr. is the Ja’Marr Chase of the 2024 NFL Draft cycle, Emeka Egbuka might be the Justin Jefferson. That’s high praise, especially considering what Jefferson has become in the NFL.
But if Harrison is a blue-chip prospect, Egbuka isn’t far behind – and he has all the traits to be an early first-round pick with his teammate.
Egbuka stands solid at 6’1″ and weighs 205 pounds. He has a good size, length, and frame density. He has some similarities with Smith-Njigba, but Egbuka is faster, more explosive, and more physical and balanced as a run-after-catch threat.
Egbuka’s style of play allows him to be versatile in his positioning, and he can be used in a variety of ways. He is also very effective against zone coverage with his accelerative capacity, tempo, flexibility, and spatial awareness.
3) Keon Coleman, Florida State
There hasn’t been a bigger riser in all of college football this season than Keon Coleman. Though he doesn’t have the same volume as other top WR prospects with 20 catches for 278 yards, his six touchdowns exemplify his big-play and red-zone ability.
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At 6’4″, 215 pounds, Coleman’s play strength is an obvious plus, both at the catch point and as a RAC threat. But Coleman compounds that play strength with rare catch-point instincts and body control in the air, with size-defying elusiveness and burst to go with it on the ground.
On top of his traits at and after the catch, Coleman also has the lateral twitch to separate independently, giving him a nearly unmatched three-level upside.
2) Malik Nabers, LSU
It appears Malik Nabers is cut from the same cloth as his predecessors Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson. The 6’0″, 200-pound Nabers already has more than half of his 2022 production, when he racked up 72 catches for 1,017 yards and three touchdowns.
Catching passes from Jayden Daniels, Nabers has been simply unstoppable in 2023. He’s particularly deadly on slot fades with his explosiveness, patience, and ball-tracking ability, but there are reps of him winning in many different ways through just six weeks.
Nabers is an athletic powder keg and a stack specialist as a route runner with smooth hands. After the catch, he’s a tough competitor with size-defying contact balance and RAC ability.
His ability to win from the slot on vertical routes or as an all-around threat on the outside makes him a potential Stefon Diggs or Garrett Wilson-level player in the NFL.
Who Is the Best WR in the 2024 NFL Draft?
It’s still too early to have a definitive pecking order in the 2024 NFL Draft WR group. But one player has already separated himself as the likely front-runner to claim the mantle of WR1.
1) Marvin Harrison Jr., Ohio State
You’ve heard a lot of things about Marvin Harrison Jr. I’m here to confirm what you’ve heard. Harrison is indeed a generational prospect. He’s my highest-graded WR prospect ever, over Ja’Marr Chase. It’s not hyperbole — it’s what he is.
It’s impossible not to get excited over the NFL potential of a prospect like Harrison. He has all-encompassing ability and tools to be a true central piece for any NFL passing attack.
Size and athleticism are where it starts with Harrison — the son of Hall of Famer Marvin Harrison Sr. — but he brings so much more to the table beyond that combination.
He’s an elite acrobatic force at the catch point with hands of steel, and he has the route nuance, targeted physicality, and flexibility to win one-on-one against DBs three or four inches shorter routinely — not to mention the speed to stack and generate chunk plays after winning those reps.
Receivers shouldn’t be able to convert as often as Harrison does in contested situations, and they shouldn’t be able to bend and carve through man coverage as effortlessly as he does at 6’4″.
Early on, Harrison is a candidate to be the top overall prospect in the 2024 NFL Draft, regardless of position. Thus, he’s safely our WR1 right now.
Honorable Mentions
- Will Sheppard, Vanderbilt
- Antwane Wells Jr., South Carolina
- Johnny Wilson, Florida State
- Brenden Rice, USC
- Ladd McConkey, Georgia
- Jalen McMillan, Washington
- Ja’Lynn Polk, Washington
- Roman Wilson, Michigan
- Brian Thomas Jr., LSU
