GLENDALE, ARIZ. - Larry Fitzgerald Jr. leaned to his left, reached back with his right hand and tapped his wallet.
"She's right here," he said, referring to the last Minnesota driver's license that his mother, Carol, had before passing away in 2003 following a seven-year battle with cancer. "I keep her right next to my license. I look at her every day. And I talk to her every day. She gives me strength."
Strength, internal strength, is a prerequisite for a star receiver playing for the 2-8 Arizona Cardinals, a team that Pete Rozelle's vision of perfect parity seems to have forgotten. Without it, well, think Oakland's Randy Moss and how he has reacted to his own 2-8 season.
Externally, Fitzgerald comes at you like a typical NFL receiver. The long dreadlocks, tied together in the back. The purple felt sport coat, white button-down shirt with red trim. And the equally colorful tie.
"Look at Larry's smoking jacket," someone said as Fitzgerald hurriedly dressed following the Cardinals' 17-10 victory over the Detroit Lions on Sunday.
Fitzgerald smiled. Hey, when you're drafted third overall, catch a franchise-record 103 passes and go to the Pro Bowl in Year 2 -- at age 22! -- you kind of earn the right to wear a purple felt sport coat.
Still the same
Internally, however, nothing much has changed for the Minneapolis native, former Vikings ballboy and Holy Angels High standout.
"He's still the same Larry," said Larry Sr., sports editor for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder and the proud papa standing off to the side as Junior was being interviewed by the masses on Sunday.
"Carol and I never had any trouble with Larry. He was always a good kid. And now I think he's handling himself well as a man in the National Football League."
Playing the league's most volatile position, where some of its most selfish and chronically unhappy divas perform, young Larry, now 23, stands out because he refuses to, well, stand out.
Moss and Fitzgerald both have 33 catches. Moss has 455 yards and three touchdowns, while Fitzgerald, in three fewer games because of a hamstring injury, has 446 yards and two touchdowns.
But while Moss has asked to be traded and excused his rash of recent drops on his "bad mood," Fitzgerald laments that he hasn't done more for Dennis Green, his embattled coach and close family friend since little Larry was a ballboy for Green's Vikings.
"I have a lot of room for improvement," Fitzgerald said. "Coach Green is a great person and a great coach. I really want to help him win as fast as we can."
Happy to return home
A good place to start would be Sunday in Fitzgerald's regular-season Metrodome debut. His only other game at the Metrodome was his first preseason game as a rookie in 2004. He was injured on the first play.
"It's a business trip, but, yeah, it's still a special place to me," Fitzgerald said. "Unfortunately, the most memorable moment is that 1998 NFC Championship Game [an overtime loss to the Falcons]. That one still hurts to this day."
Fitzgerald caught only two passes for 30 yards against the Lions, although one of them was a sideline-diving 24-yard reception that set up the Cardinals' first touchdown. Fitzgerald was open many more times, but quarterback Matt Leinart, like most rookie quarterbacks, didn't see the open man.
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