While the Arizona Cardinals face the Detroit Lions in Week 5, the biggest storyline will be unfolding outside the white lines.
Marvin Harrison Jr., according to multiple reports, is set to be inactive for the game as the Cardinals work to finalize a trade of their former No. 4 overall pick. Harrison's destination, as well as the compensation for Arizona, is not yet known. As the situation unfolds, this is where attention will be directed.
But Harrison’s absence will also have an impact on the field.
Despite catching just five passes on 13 targets through four games, Harrison had played 74.1% of the team's offensive snaps. The Cardinals did not feature him heavily as an early read in this passing game, but his role as a vertical, field-stretching
presence had an impact on planning by opposing defenses.
Jalen Brooks appears to be the favorite to fill Harrison's role. Brooks is the only wide receiver outside of Arizona’s top trio — Harrison, Michael Wilson and Kendrick Bourne — to have run a single route this season. He has played 13 snaps and run three routes, primarily slotting in for Harrison on run plays.
The second candidate would be Simi Fehoko, who played six snaps in each of the Cardinals’ first two games. Fehoko, though, has exclusively played on special teams over the past two weeks.
Another option would be for the Cardinals to move Bourne into an outside wide receiver role, which is where he has played for the majority of his career. Head coach Mike LaFleur, though, prefers Bourne in the slot, where the Cardinals can take advantage of his skill set as a yards-after-catch weapon and a willing blocker. By sliding him to the outside, they would lose some of that versatility.
Plus, the nominal WR2 role in this offense is not overly meaningful. The Cardinals are almost always either in one-wide-receiver or three-wide-receiver sets.
The expectation, then, would be that Bourne will remain in the slot, with Brooks — or Fehoko — filling in for Harrison.
It’s Wilson, though, who is the biggest winner from this trade. Harrison, of course, was not commanding a large target share this year, but the move entrenches Wilson as the Cardinals’ top wide receiver for the rest of the season. His target share — already 10th in the NFL at 27% — should now be steady moving forward.
Just look at last season. In the five games Harrison missed due to injury, Wilson saw 30% of the Cardinals' targets, catching 46 passes for 598 yards and four touchdowns.
“I still think Mike has a ways to go in a good way,” LaFleur said this week. “I think his ceiling is still much higher than where he’s at.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Here are Cardinals' options on offense without Marvin Harrison Jr.
