Are the Cardinals drawing up enough plays for Marvin Harrison Jr.?

TEMPE — It’s not out of the normal for offenses to lean on one pass catcher or another on a given play.

For the Arizona Cardinals, that’s mostly been tight end Trey McBride, who has seen almost double the targets as anyone else on the roster. He’s unsurprisingly the primary first read in the offense. Michael Wilson is another one Arizona clearly has a set of specific plays drawn up for.

The same goes for Marvin Harrison Jr., says head coach Mike LaFleur — even if the stat line, target share and general optics say otherwise.

“You have plays designed for all these guys based on what you feel like they can do best. The thing about the guys that are actually catching the football is they’re in command and out of control,” LaFleur said Friday. “All he can do and all the other eligible (pass catchers) can do is what their assignment is. Then the defense will dictate whether that ball gets there … and all those kinds of things.

“There’s definitely certain things that we do with Marv that we’re not doing with other guys. I won’t go into the nitty-gritty with it, but that’s all these guys.”

One thing they are definitely doing with Harrison as opposed to anyone else on the roster is sending him deep. The wide receiver is averaging a lengthy 18.6 air yards per target two weeks in, according to NFL Pro.

Harrison has had his moments finding open space, yet more times than not Jacoby Brissett is looking elsewhere or is forced to get the ball out due to the defense bearing down on the quarterback.

Still, the wideout just isn’t getting nearly the same number of first-read looks compared to McBride and Wilson. Now, getting those first reads doesn’t always mean the play is designed to go there — can’t keep things that obvious — but they’re still a good indicator of where the wide receiver falls in the pecking order.

So, while there have been plays drawn up for Harrison, they’ve been few and far between two weeks in.

If Harrison and the offense want to quiet the noise and pick up more third downs, making him more of the first read, and potentially picking up some explosives because of it, is a good way to start.

Will Marvin Harrison Jr. get back on track vs. the 49ers?

The Cardinals’ primary game plans the past two weeks were focused on the underneath and quick games.

It worked against the Los Angeles Chargers, who clearly have their own problems. It fell flat against the Seattle Seahawks, who are on the short list of Super Bowl contenders early on.

Neither of those game plans really fit what Harrison has been asked to do as the X receiver in LaFleur’s offense: stretch the field.

That might not be the case this week, though, given how the 49ers defense has lined up this year.

San Francisco has leaned on their base 4-3 defense at a top five rate this year, according to The Score’s Sam Hoppen. Not hard to do when San Francisco has a linebacker duo of Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw patrolling the middle. The 49ers are stacking the box at a top 10 clip through two games. They are mucking up the middle of the field.

For example, the Seahawks rank dead last in heavy box usage and are 24th in base defense (not surprising given Seattle’s nickel tendencies) two weeks in. They were basically welcoming the underneath game in last week’s win over the Cardinals, knowing they had everything else locked down.

Brissett also has one less premier pass rusher to worry about with Nick Bosa out with a calf injury. Romello Height is also out with a hand issue. The more time Brissett can sit back and go through his reads, the better it will be for Harrison’s target share.

After that, it’s all on Harrison to do the rest.

The wide receiver was the talk of the NFL this week for his lack of effort on a number of plays in Sunday’s loss to the Seahawks.

That can’t be on display this week, neither can a case of the drops. The opportunities have clearly not been there for Harrison. He can’t afford to let any slip out of his grasp at this rate.

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