Marvin Harrison Jr. shocked a lot of people when he decided to take a rather unorthodox approach to preparing for the NFL Draft, declining to work out and participate in drills at the NFL Scouting Combine or Ohio State’s Pro Day. But The Arizona Cardinals sure do not seem bothered by those choices.
Obviously, the Cardinals were not scared away by these decisions from Marvin Harrison Jr. as they still chose to select him with the No. 4 overall pick in the draft last week, and during a recent interview with SiriusXM NFL Radio, Cardinals General Manager Monti Ossenfort explained why the team was still so comfortable selecting him despite these decisions.
“Yeah, I’d say with Marvin, a unique case. He made the decisions that he made to approach the draft process like he did,” Ossenfort said according to Pro Football Talk. “But you’re right, we did get a good look at him working out — we had that tape from last year when he ran routes at C.J. Stroud’s Pro Day, so we did check that box. And I think there’s a number of prospects in every draft that don’t check off every box — whether it’s for a medical reason or a personal choice, whatever it is, they may not complete a workout or they may not do everything like everybody else does. So, it wasn’t the first time that we’ve had to complete an evaluation on a player without every box filled and it’s certainly not going to be the last.
“But we felt very strongly about our evaluation of Marvin off the tape, off of last year’s Pro Day. And then what really sealed it for us was when Marvin came in for a [top] 30 visit and we got to spend an entire day with him and just really find out who the person was, what made him tick, and just the way he approached his job. So, you know, we had plenty to evaluate Marvin on and certainly more than enough to pull his card off the board at No. 4.”
It’s clear that the Cardinals did not feel like they needed to see those workouts to feel comfortable that he was the top wide receiver in the draft.
