Larry Fitzgerald calls his season ‘an average year’

The Arizona Cardinals have put the NFL on notice. With a tough game against the San Francisco 49ers this Sunday, they have a chance to go 11-5 on the season. With help from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in their game against the New Orleans Saints, the Cardinals could actually make the playoffs.

Crazy, right? Most of their surge has been keyed by outstanding play on the defensive side of the ball, but with wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald serving as the face of the franchise, one would assume he is a huge part of the team’s success as well.

On the one hand you could argue that he has been. Fitzgerald has 76 catches on the season, good for 841 yards and 10 TDs. But he has only one 100 yard game, and when asked recently by AZCentral, Fitzgerald had a measured assessment of his performance in 2013:

"Asked to assess his own season, wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald called it ‘an average year.’‘But I just think about where we are as a team as opposed to where we were last year and the year before, you know, playing meaningful games in December and having a chance to win 11 games and matching our best in franchise history … that’s a pretty impressive year, to say the least…”"

Even though Carson Palmer is on the verge of a 4,000 yard season, I would say that Fitzgerald shouldn’t beat himself up too much for having an average year with him at QB. Average is a pretty fine accomplishment, actually.