Game balls are not dispensed for moral victories in the NFL.
Not in Year 3 of a painstaking rebuild in Arizona, where the Cardinals have now lost two divisional games in the span of five days. But in the wake of a 23-20 loss to the Seahawks on Thursday Night Football, let’s hope Marvin Harrison Jr. has finally turned a corner.
What else matters at this point? What other hope is left for an impotent, paper-thin offense?
For most of Thursday’s game, the Cardinals required supreme effort to move the chains. The aesthetics were painful. The playing field at State Farm Stadium never looked better, and the offense rarely looked worse.
Kyler Murray exceeded 600 consecutive passes without a 50-yard gain, the longest streak among current NFL quarterbacks. The team has an alarming lack of gamebreakers and playmakers on the edge, an issue we all saw coming months ago.
And that’s a serious problem, since we all trust general manager Monti Ossenfort to be smarter than the rest of us when it comes to roster construction.
The Cardinals were actually booed off the field in the first half, which included another brutal gaffe from Harrison. The fourth overall pick in the 2024 NFL butchered another routine completion, bobbling the football into the hands of the opposition for a gift-wrapped interception. At that point, there could be no avoiding or denying the truth, that the son of a Hall of Fame wide receiver was closer to bust than the Pro Bowl.
To their credit, the Cardinals did not quit. Their defense held firm. And then Murray connected with Harrison on a touchdown pass that required real toughness and resilience and elite talent, a moment that seemed to open a floodgate of emotions for the young wide receiver.
There is a softness to Harrison’s game that remains worrisome. But on Thursday night, he showed real toughness in continuing to battle, in not giving up or giving in. His touchdown sparked a comeback and unleashed a different look and rhythm to the Cardinals offense. And if this game was a revelation and a turning point for Harrison, then it might be well worth the cost of defeat.
Reach Bickley at dbickley@arizonasports.com. Listen to Bickley & Marotta weekdays from 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station.
