Marvin Harrison Jr.’s rough opening to the 2026 season has turned into one of the league’s loudest talking points, and not just in Arizona. The Cardinals wideout has only one catch through two games and has been a non-factor in an offense that has found other places to spread the ball.
That slowdown has NFL front offices watching closely.
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler said teams around the league are trying to make sense of Harrison’s situation and what it could mean down the road.
"He's a big talking point around the league right now in front offices. [They're] trying to figure out does he need a fresh start?
Will he eventually be traded? What exactly is going on for the No. 4 overall pick from a few years ago, who was considered a slam dunk.
He really had everything," Fowler said on Saturday.
Fowler added that scouts and executives he spoke with were stunned by how this has played out.
"Talking to some scouts and execs this week they said nobody saw this coming - because maybe he didn't have the killer instinct as a player but he had everything else. So this is a major surprise.
"The Cardinals do want to get him involved, but the problem is they have Trey McBride - star tight end - he gets a ton of targets. Michael Wilson is a proven commodity at receiver.
They have Jeremiyah Love at running back, who will be involved in the passing game. The targets are still tough to come by at this point."
Harrison, for his part, isn’t pretending he’s unaware of the noise. He said this week that he’s seeing plenty of it, but plans to stay focused on his own work.
"It's the social media era, you see everything. I'm not going to sit here and say I don't see nothing," Harrison told reporters at his locker this week.
"You get told to block out the noise and not pay attention to it. That's part of it.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. I just going to continue to worry about my team, my process."
The Cardinals now face a significant call on Harrison’s fifth-year option after the 2026 season. If Arizona declines it, he would become a free agent after 2027.
That outcome still feels like a long way off, especially with the gap between Harrison and the rest of the Cardinals’ receiver group still looking substantial. A trade conversation could become more realistic next offseason, when Arizona may have a chance to add more help to the room.
For now, though, the bigger reality is that Harrison’s slow start has the whole league talking.
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