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Marvin Harrison Jr.'s Resurgent Second Half on 'TNF' Earned Big Praise From Cardinals

Liam McKeone

Marvin Harrison Jr.'s brutal first half didn't stop him from having a big second half in the Cardinals' loss to the Seahawks.
Marvin Harrison Jr.'s brutal first half didn't stop him from having a big second half in the Cardinals' loss to the Seahawks. / Joe Rondone/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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The first three quarters of Thursday night's Cardinals-Seahawks contest were very bad for second-year wideout Marvin Harrison Jr.

Thought to be the best wideout of the 2024 class, Harrison was taken with the fourth pick in the draft. He didn't have a very good rookie season but expectations were high entering 2025. Harrison failed to live up to those expectations in the first three weeks of the year and seemed to crater entirely against Seattle in front of a primetime audience on Thursday Night Football.

His routes were not crisp, he was failing to make any kind of impact on the offense, and then a drop turned into an interception. It all left fans and analysts alike to wonder if we were all watching Harrison's potential go up in flames in front of our very eyes.

Then the fourth quarter began and the young wideout was an entirely different player. After recording only one catch in the first half Harrison caught five balls in the second half. One went for a touchdown and was incredibly impressive. Another was a critical, difficult catch on the Cardinals' game-tying drive that led directly to a touchdown. Arizona still lost, obviously, but Harrison put on a great show of resilience.

It did not go unappreciated by his teammates and coaches. Star QB Kyler Murray sang Harrison's praises after the contest, saying his teammate "played his a-- off," while head coach Jonathan Gannon was similarly effusive despite a tough last-second loss.

"At the end of the day, it's football, we all make mistakes," Murray said to reporters in his postgame press conference. "But he continued to battle. I'm excited and I'm glad he played his a-- off in the fourth quarter. When he got man (coverage), he made plays. The touchdown catch was an amazing catch. I got the utmost confidence in him and he should have it as well.

"The response was fantastic," Gannon shared. "I thought he came and lit it up in the second half... He got involved, made some big-time plays. The touchdown catch was a big-time play. Couple catches on those drives, he's winning one-on-one. I'm not worried about Marv at all. He's gonna be just fine... I thought he was resilient just like that whole crew is."

Harrison's final statline of six catches for 66 yards and a touchdown isn't eye-popping. Nor is it what the Cardinals want out of him every week as a top-five draft pick in his second season with a talented quarterback throwing him the ball. But after how poorly the first part of the game went it was a very successful and perhaps important result for Harrison. We could very well end up looking back on the second half of TNF as a turning point for the young receiver.

The Cardinals fell to 2-2 with the loss and will next take the field against Titans on October 5.

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Liam McKeone
LIAM MCKEONE

Liam McKeone is a senior writer for the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He has been in the industry as a content creator since 2017, and prior to joining SI in May 2024, McKeone worked for NBC Sports Boston and The Big Lead. In addition to his work as a writer, he has hosted the Press Pass Podcast covering sports media and The Big Stream covering pop culture. A graduate of Fordham University, he is always up for a good debate and enjoys loudly arguing about sports, rap music, books and video games. McKeone has been a member of the National Sports Media Association since 2020.

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