Cardinals, Including Marvin Harrison Jr., Address His One-Catch Performance

ARIZONA — The performance (or lack thereof) from Marvin Harrison Jr. in the Arizona Cardinals' season opener has been a massive topic surrounding the organization, even after a win.

Harrison caught just one of three targets in the Cardinals' win over Los Angeles, ranking last out of six Arizona position players who caught passes from quarterback Jacoby Brissett. Dating back to last season, this is the fourth time in Harrison's last eight games played he's logged three or less targets.

Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur says don't pay close attention to those numbers in the first week of the season.

"As I was saying with the (running) backs, I wouldn't look too much into the targets and all that kind of stuff," LaFleur said.

"It was just kind of how the game unfolded and we're always going to do what we think is best in terms of putting our players in position to be successful — what makes sense against the coverages and scheme that we're going against. I'll tell you what, though, that was a huge play. It was a great throw obviously, but to get that ball up and down on the sideline, I mean that just looked right."

We extensively looked at Harrison's performance and came to the conclusion that he commanded plenty of attention from the Chargers defense. Should Arizona look to get a talent like Harrison more involved?

Sure, says Brissett, though the offense naturally will shift elsewhere if Harrison is commanding more attention than other weapons.

"I don't want to get into the whole overreaction of Week 1 because he had one catch or something like that. It's a long season. He did a lot of things. He got a lot of attention in the game. I think that speaks more to him," Brissett told reporters.

"People may say, 'Oh, he didn't have a lot of catches,' but it's a reason why he's double-covered, and he's got a safety over top of him and playing him so heavy at the line of scrimmage because they understand the one time that they don't, you see what happens. I think obviously it's finding different ways to give him the ball, but if he's attracting that amount of attention, I think Marv understands, 'Hey, I've got to help my brothers out and my teammate out and get them open." I thought he did a good job with that."

Harrison himself touched on that when speaking with reporters this week at his locker:

"I think that's just part of it," Harrison said.

"It's gonna be different each week. Going into the week I was familiar with [Jim] Harbaugh, going against him for many years — how they play me a lot of times. I guess they still had the same respect for me. But I kind of had a feeling going into the game I wasn't going to see many one-high looks ...

"You're not going to get many of those [one-on-one] opportunities but when you do just capitalize on the one you have. It's part of the game. Everyone's going to have their weeks and have their days. At the end of the day, the team won."

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