After a debut that offered more question marks than exclamation points, Marvin Harrison answered the criticism in a big way.
The Cardinals’ first-round pick had four catches for 130 yards and two touchdowns in the first quarter against the Rams. It marked the first time a rookie receiver has had four or more catches and two or more touchdowns in the first quarter of a game since his Hall of Fame father did it in 1996 with the Colts.
Harrison Jr. finished with no more catches, no more yards and no more touchdowns, but it was enough for the Cardinals in a 41-10 rout of the Rams.
The first thing Harrison noticed on the stat sheet, though, was all four of Kyler Murray’s incompletions were targets to him.
“I’m not very happy about that,” Harrison said, via Theo Mackie of the Arizona Republic. “We definitely got to get that fixed.”
After the third overall pick played 55 of 61 offensive snaps but made only one catch for 4 yards on three targets with one drop in the opener, Seth Walder of ESPN pointed out that Harrison’s top speed of 16.7 mph ranked 1,699th of 1,730 wideouts who played at least 25 snaps since the start of the 2023 season.
Harrison seemed confused when told the stat last week.
“All I know,” Harrison said, “is I’m fast.”
He proved Sunday he is fast enough . . . and that players shouldn’t be judged off one game.
“You can’t change anything up just off of one week,” Harrison said. “The process is probably the most critical and important factor to anything.”
