TEMPE, Ariz. — During a news conference this week, Arizona Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt spoke about his team’s work with quarterback Kurt Warner, an effort that emphasized taking care of the football and making good decisions in the passing game.
Moments later, though, the coach admitted that during the surprising run that has led to hosting Sunday’s NFC championship game, the Cardinals have been making up plays on the fly. During the regular season, and before playoff upsets over Atlanta and Carolina the past two weeks. Plays in which Whisenhunt knows the intended receiver may be double-teamed, but wants Warner to throw the ball anyway.
That’s how good Larry Fitzgerald is.
“A lot of times with Larry, all it takes is a slight hesitation by a cornerback or a safety and that gives you an advantage,” War-ner said. “They may be trying to double-team him, but we’ve seen the last couple of weeks that if he gets a step or two, you can just put the ball up and you’ve got the advantage.”
Perhaps it took the Cardinals getting this far to deliver a stage big enough for the nation to see — and appreciate — Fitzgerald’s brilliance. In a league, at a position, dominated by headline-generating antics by the likes of Dallas’ Terrell Owens and New England’s Randy Moss, Fitzgerald has always been there, if anyone cared to look.
During his five seasons, Fitzgerald has caught 426 passes, reaching the 400 mark faster than any other player in NFL history. He has missed only four games and never failed to start a game in which he has played.
But reliability doesn’t sell newspapers, or generate Web traffic, or even get on Sunday, Monday or Thursday night football. Not that Fitzgerald cares about increasing his profile, or Q ratings. Leaving a locker room overrun by media preparing for Sunday’s game at University of Phoenix Stadium, Fitzgerald almost visibly cringed Wednesday when reminded of a required news conference this afternoon.
Asked how he was going to get through the ordeal, Fitzgerald shrugged.
“Just short answers and on to the next question, I guess,” he said. “I’ve found that if you keep opening your mouth, you can only get into trouble.”
There are some who might find it odd that this philosophy comes from the son of a sportswriter. Fitzgerald’s father, Larry Sr., is a longtime journalist in Minneapolis. But others will say that the son is very much a product of his mother, Carol, who died from cancer in 2003.
“The things he does, like just tossing the ball back to the official after he scores — that’s his mother,” former NFL receiver Cris Carter said.
Carter and Moss were a star combination for the Minnesota Vikings in the late 1990s, and Fitzgerald, who served as a ball boy for the team during some of the team’s training camps at that time, may as well have been the Third Amigo.
In some ways, it was a strange mixture, the 30-something Carter, the young, brash Moss and this tag-along high-schooler, but it worked.
“Randy and I were so different, but it was great the way he could hang with both of us,” said Carter, now an analyst for ESPN. “Being the age I was, there were things I wasn’t going to do. I wasn’t going to be sitting in the dorm playing video games like Randy and Fitz would, but somehow, even without me knowing it, we’d end up spending more and more time together.”
Part of that may have been because, more than old-school, Fitzgerald is an old soul. So it was that, after the video games with Moss, the youngster would gravitate to Carter for talks that had little to do with X’s and O’s.
“Even at a young age, you could see he had unbelievable ball skills, but we never talked much of that pro football stuff,” Carter said. “We would talk about me being in the league, but not him. It wasn’t the right thing to do.
“Of course you wanted him to maximize his abilities, but it was more growing up and being responsible, being a good man. It would start at the field, but then he’d end up coming over to our house and we’d talk there too.”
Fitzgerald gives Carter credit for helping show him what it meant to be a professional — “I remember him taking guys under his wing and doing things for them that were never written or heard about by anyone,” he said. “Those are some of the things I’m trying to do today.”
Of course, right now, it’s Fitzgerald’s on-field skills that have captured eyeballs across the country. Whisenhunt says he knows there are occasions when the receiver isn’t open and adds that it “isn’t natural” for Warner to throw it to him anyway. But with results such as the 42-yard touchdown that gave the Cardinals an early lead against Atlanta, or his eight-catch, 166-yard, one touchdown game against Carolina, it’s easy to understand why Arizona does it and will continue to do so.
“You should see some of the catches he makes out in practice every day,” fellow wide receiver Steve Breaston said. “They make the ones he’s doing in the games now look routine.”
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com
High five
There are players who make a lot of catches (i.e. Denver’s Brandon Marshall) and players who make a lot of tough catches (Denver’s Tony Scheffler). Arizona’s Larry Fitzgerald does both and is one of the best at making the tough grab. Staff writer Anthony Cotton picks five players to whom quarterbacks don’t mind throwing in traffic:
Larry Fitzgerald, Cardinals: Arizona is designing plays to throw into double-team coverage.
Antonio Gates, Chargers: Former hoops power forward knows how to leap over and screen out defenders.
Andre Johnson, Texans: Premier size lets him shrug off defensive backs.
Randy Moss, Pats: The best at making the hard catch look effortless.
Steve Smith, Panthers: Smallest player on the list might be the toughest.
