We’re in the dog days of the NFL calendar right now. We just had the Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, but it’s still a quiet time for the NFL and its fans until the new league year opens a couple of weeks from now.
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And boredom breeds bad decisions. Sometimes those bad decisions come in the form of people chasing interactions on social media with dubious claims and reports. We’ve had one such already, and it has already tested the wits and social media literacy of many NFL fans.
Claim: The Arizona Cardinals are finalizing a deal to send 2024 first-round pick Marvin Harrison Jr. to the Cleveland Browns in exchange for the No. 24 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft as well as a third-round pick in 2026.
Harrison has not exactly impressed since being taken fourth overall by Arizona a couple of years ago during that “draft of the QB” in 2024. They might have done better to have taken one of those many QBs available. MHJ had 882 yards and eight TDs as a rookie. Decent. But he missed five games in 2025 and finished with just 608 yards and four TDs. Arizona’s offense arguably looked better with the big guy out of the lineup.
So this trade does make sense hypothetically. The Cardinals are likely to move on from Kyler Murray as well, so it’s a rebuilding situation where they’re trying to gather draft assets and cut bait with perceived mistakes. Meanwhile, the Browns fill a dire need at wide receiver, give their presumptive QB1 Shedeur Sanders a more reliable target, and perhaps Harrison thrives in a new setting.
Source of the Claim: This report was posted on Twitter by an account called @JeffSimonSports. It has 1,289 followers and generally tweets about sports. It has not previously broken news of this level, so it’s dubious how it got this inside information. Simon added that the talks progressed during Combine week, which eventually led to the deal, “per sources”.
Verdict: 100% false. Jeff Simon has never been an account known for reporting news like this. And the most damning thing is that nobody else in the industry picked up the report and posted about it themselves.
There are a few guys, like Adam Schefter, Tom Pelissero, and Ari Meirov, who are going to report every single move that is made across the NFL. Especially the big ones. So while sometimes a less heralded reporter will break the news initially, these guys will always pick it up afterwards. If they don’t, they probably found that the reports were false.
However, there have been soft reports from more reliable people, like SB Nation’s Jared Mueller, that have indicated that the Browns are kicking the tires on Harrison. Mueller even said that Cleveland had put a call in on the player. So while it’s not happened yet, a Marvin Harrison Jr. trade to the Cleveland Browns during this cycle is actually quite possible.
