Marvin Harrison Jr. showed a tiny uptick with three catches on Sunday, but it simply wasn’t enough to shut out the trade noise. It’s going to take almost game-changing numbers to reverse the quiet scorebard he’s had going on for two years in Arizona.
Cardinals have made no comments on picking up their phones if a rival office reaches out, but NFL GMs and front office exces are already preparing for the wide receiver to hit the market. And when push comes to shove, those discussions are coming down to a very real question: what is Marvin Harrison Jr. actually worth right now?
According to the NFL Blue Book’s Charles Robinson’s interviews with seven league executives, the trade value surrounding the former top-five pick isn’t the king’s ransom people expected.
Most front offices view his current market sitting at a late second-round pick, or a third-rounder plus a sweetener.
“He is a player that is getting judged relative to what he was supposed to be, while people are losing sight of the fact that he is still a useful player,” the GM said.
Cardinals Might Get Late Second-Round Pick For Marvin Harrison Jr.
Through three weeks, that production has sat at just four catches for 73 yards. That’s the type of output that Robinson calls a “decoy” and “fourth option in the passing game. At best.”
The ones seeing Harrison Jr’s ceiling at a second-round pick that will come late aren’t actually betting on the current Harrison. They’re betting on the potential they saw in Ohio State, and believe is still there, tuced away somewhere.
“Three front offices agreed on this, and it was largely based on how they viewed Harrison Jr.’s talent level coming out of Ohio State in 2024, and the uneven nature of the Arizona Cardinals franchise that he was drafted into,” Robinson writes.
“[His situation in Arizona] has been a strange deal since he entered the league,” one general manager said. “He doesn’t play with a lot of urgency on tape. I could still see a playoff team with a wide receiver need taking a swing on the college tape with a second-round pick.”
Another personnel executive, “I think what we saw at Ohio State is still in there. But [in just over two seasons] he’s had two coaching staffs, [two] quarterbacks, an injury — it fits into the production and probably where his head is. … Football environment comes out. That’s not meant to criticize this [current] Arizona coaching staff, either. I’m sure they inherited whatever happened with Marvin in 2025.”
Or a Third-Round Pick and a Sweetner
The others, the majority of the gourp, believed in Harrison going as a third-round pick with another assett optimistically.
“The four remaining front offices, including two general managers, fell into this category,” Robinson explained, adding that the ‘plus’ portion of their suggestions varied between adding a fifth- or sixth-round pick or arranging some form of late-round pick swaps.
Cue the Goerge Pickens trade, where the Steelers sent Pickens to the Cowboys for third and fifth-round picks, while Dallas received Pickens and a sixth.
One general manager said, “I don’t think Marvin has that kind of reputation, but I also don’t think he’s as talented as Pickens. But that value feels right. You can also be creative and add some conditional terms to the picks, too.”
Unless the Cardinals still want to hold onto his potential, or see some serious progress in him, teams can make either of these exchanges tempting enough that the Arizona front office can’t ignore the offers anymore.
Cardinals Get Humbling, But Realistic, Trade Market Value for Marvin Harrison Jr.