On Sunday, the only No. 18 in Arizona was in the stands; receiver Marvin Harrison didn't play — and presumably wasn't even in the building — one day after the mysterious half-report emerged from Adam Schefter and Ian Rapoport of ESPNFL that Harrison would be traded to a team to be named later.
It's possible that they both knew the destination and agreed to not report it; as one source explained it to PFT, some of the #insiders (and possibly Schefter and/or Rapoport) knew Harrison had hired agents last month for the first time in his career but kept that news under wraps for as long as possible in order to ensure the effort to get Harrison traded would happen without a widespread sense of a potential Arizona fire sale emerging and, in turn, complicating the Cardinals' effort to get value for Harrison and Harrison's effort to get out of Arizona.
Fast forward to one of the most bizarre trade reports in recent years, if not ever, and the question is whether the two teams were still haggling as of Saturday or whether the deal was in place. And whether the door was open for another team (or more) to get involved.
Although the facts are very hard to completely uncover (the simple fact that Cardinals G.M. Monti Ossenfort and Texans G.M. Nick Caserio spent 14 years together, from 2006 through 2019, working for Lord of Secrecy Bill Belichick is the obvious reason for that), it appears that a deal was fully in place before Sunday, and that both teams wanted to delay the announcement until after they played their games on Sunday.
The Texans didn't fully cooperate in that regard. At the end of his postgame press conference, Texans coach DeMeco Ryans (who was never a member of the Belichick hive) blurted it out after being asked about Harrison multiple times.
The Cardinals game, which kicked off at 4:05 p.m. ET, hadn't ended. It had barely started.
So why not announce it on Saturday? As best we can tell, the goal was to not create a distraction before Sunday's game — more for the Texans than for the Cardinals, especially since the word was out that the Cardinals were trading Harrison out of town.
If the deal wasn't already done, there was no reason for the Cardinals to not wait and see whether another team that had yet to play (up to and including the Monday night game between the Bills and Rams) would develop a sudden need for Harrison due to an injury and make a better offer for the fourth overall pick in the 2026 draft. But the Cardinals didn't wait until the dust fully settled on Week 5. Which alone points to a conclusion that the deal was done before Sunday.
Then there's the reality that Harrison must still pass a physical. While that's usually a technicality, it's a technicality that kept Maxx Crosby in Las Vegas after the deal was announced that would have sent him to Baltimore. Given that Harrison has been playing this season, there's no specific reason to think he'll fail the Texans' physical. Still, it's not completely done until the doctor(s) provide the official thumbs up.
As to the haggling, it was apparently done before Sunday's games even started. But the fact that the information was partially reported served only to create confusion among those who consume the news, leading to the inevitable tinfoil-hat suspicions that someone was trying to make a little money in the prediction markets.