Marvin Harrison Jr. will be a big story for the Cardinals until he isn't, and maybe that won't come until his career ends. So the days when he has big games, like against the Rams, it's noteworthy. The days he isn't targeted, like against Buffalo, it's noteworthy. The days when he is targeted and it's not quite working, like against Detroit, it's noteworthy.
Harrison had five catches against the Lions, but six targets that went incomplete -- although many were close.
"A couple inches here, a couple inches there," he said. "I just want a completion."
In a world that is now dominated with advanced stats -- revealed by the NFL itself -- analysis for any particular player comes from all angles. Harrison had plenty of separation on his touchdown catch against the Lions on a beautiful route, but according to Nex Gen Stats, the rookie has only 1.7 yards of separation per target of those with qualified number of targets.
Some of that is attention from defenses -- the next two lowest on the list are the Cowboys' CeeDee Lamb (1.9) and the 49ers' Brandon Aiyuk (2.1). And there are encouraging numbers too, depending how you want to look at Harrison's work: On his 22 targets, he is averaging 16.7 yards a target, fourth in the league (and no one above him has more than 16 targets.)
And when you watch the video, you can easily see where some of the passes that are misses now will not be misses in the near-future. Harrison has 10 catches, and a 45.5 catch percentage is going to be higher with Kyler Murray at QB. Those "couple inches" could definitely mean five or six more receptions already.
(Some context: In Larry Fitzgerald's rookie year, he caught 58 of 115 targets, for 50.4 percent. Fitz's lowest percentage in his career came in 2012 with a cornucopia of QB, when he made 71 receptions on 156 targets for a 45.5 percentage)
There is no worry from Murray, from OC Drew Petzing, from Jonathan Gannon. Or Harrison for that matter, who is talking to Murray constantly to find a way to permanently be on the same page.
"It's two people explaining their sides of the story," Harrison said.
