Marvin Harrison Camp Update — August 23: Played a Half in a Penalty-Wrecked Loss
2026 NFL Season · Sunday, Aug 23
Harrison was one of the day-one starters Mike LaFleur put on the field against Dallas, in a half where Gardner Minshew went nineteen of twenty-three and Arizona kept wiping out its own touchdowns with penalties. The extended look we wanted happened; a clean target count did not survive the laundry.
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Marvin Harrison Junior played Saturday night. He was on the list of day-one starters head coach Mike LaFleur committed to playing against Dallas — alongside Michael Wilson, Trey McBride, three starting offensive linemen and Budda Baker — per Darren Urban at the team website, while Jacoby Brissett and the most entrenched veterans sat. That made it Harrison's longest run of the preseason: Gardner Minshew started and played at least a half, going 19 of 23 for 177 yards in a 34 to 13 loss, per the Associated Press.
The half itself was a mess in a very specific way. Arizona twice reached the end zone on a single drive and had both touchdowns wiped out by penalties on tight end Rivaldo Fairweather — one hold, one offensive pass interference — and later committed a false start at the Dallas one-yard line, settling for field goals of 38 31 yards, per the Associated Press. LaFleur afterward: "It's just sloppy. If we're going down, we're going down swinging the right way," per Tyler Drake at Arizona Sports. None of the attributable accounts of the game charted Harrison's targets, so the number we most wanted from this game — his share of a nearly perfect Minshew half — is not something we can report.
Back in June we framed Harrison as football's most unresolved argument — fourth-overall pedigree against two seasons of complementary production, with the answer due from volume rather than highlights. Two weeks ago the preseason gave him a highlight, the touchdown in Las Vegas; this week it gave him extended snaps inside an offense too busy flagging itself to resolve anything.
Watch his usage in Friday's preseason finale at Green Bay if the starters get another stretch, and watch the practice files once regular-season game-planning starts — the volume question needs numbers, and the preseason is nearly out of chances to produce them. We'll check after cut day.
_Data via nflverse._
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