The Arizona Cardinals are gearing up for their Week 6 action, and when they return to the field, they will be without wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. While he was made inactive for the team’s Week 5 loss to the Detroit Lions, Harrison was officially traded to the Houston Texans earlier this week.
The decision to unload Harrison brought an end to a sorely disappointing stint with the team that saw him fail to live up to the sky-high expectations he entered the league with. Still, at just 24 years old, Harrison has more than enough time to get his career back on track, and when discussing the trade that sent him to the Texans, the former first-round pick appeared to throw shade at his former team.
The No. 4 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, Harrison was viewed as a generational prospect at the wide receiver position coming out of college. Instead, in what has essentially amounted to two-plus seasons of games with the Cardinals, Harrison never came particularly close to reaching his sky-high expectations.
Things really came to a head early on this season after Harrison caught just five passes for 85 yards and a touchdown through four games of action. It became abundantly clear that, for whatever reason, things were not working out for Harrison in Arizona, which led to his name frequently popping up in trade rumors.
Houston decided to take a chance on Harrison, as it reunites him with his college quarterback, C.J. Stroud, from their shared days with the Ohio State Buckeyes. For his part, Harrison is looking forward to getting a fresh start with the Texans, as he refused to elaborate on where things went wrong for him with the Cards.
“I’ll keep those things to myself. I’m really just moving forward,” Harrison said when asked why his tenure with the Cardinals didn’t go as planned.
Cardinals Still Have Plethora of Weapons After Marvin Harrison Jr. Trade
Admitting defeat on the selection of Harrison not even three full years after selecting him is a really tough pill to swallow, even when accounting for the fact that the front office managed to get a 2027 second-round pick back in exchange for him. Harrison still has quite a bit of potential that he could very well realize now that he’s with the Texans, but anytime you move on from a No. 4 overall pick this quickly, it’s clear that something has gone wrong.
The silver lining for the Cardinals is that guys like Trey McBride, Michael Wilson, and Jeremiyah Love helped make Harrison expendable in the first place, so now that he is gone, quarterback Jacoby Brissett can focus less on getting the ball to certain players, and instead worry about simply finding the open man downfield. Arizona will be back in action in Week 6 when it squares off against the Los Angeles Rams in an important NFC West matchup.
Marvin Harrison Jr. Throws Shade at Cardinals After Texans Trade