The younger brother of Cardinals receiver Larry Fitzgerald hasn’t been blessed with the same degree of football skills.
But, by all appearances, Marcus Fitzgerald (who is on the preseason roster of the UFL’s California Redwoods) didn’t make up for the relative lack of physical prowess by acquiring an abundance of smarts.
Larry Fitzgerald has consistently shown that he knows what to say and what not to say when the public is paying attention. In one afternoon of frustration, however, Marcus has thrown a wrench into that carefully constructed image.
Last night, we pointed out that Marcus posted a stream of messages on his Twitter page during and after Sunday’s Cardinals-Jaguars game. The tweets expressed frustration regarding the fact that not enough of the 24 completions on 26 attempts from quarterback Kurt Warner were going to Larry.
Some of the posts clearly indicated that Larry himself expressed frustration -- both via a halftime text message and a post-game phone call.
Never mind the fact that, you know, the Cardinals won the game by 14 points.
According to Dan Bickley of the Arizona Republic, Larry’s in-game demeanor suggested that he was indeed frustrated. After the game, however, Larry claimed that he was simply exhausted (apparently from not catching all those passes).
So Marcus didn’t delete the tweets from his page. Instead, he has posted half-hearted (hoof hearted) apologies, explaining at times that he was kidding and at other times that he “was just frustrated” for his brother.
But that’s the point. Marcus was frustrated, and Marcus mentioned during his frustration that Larry was frustrated, too. If it was all a joke, we’re still searching for the punch line. (We now understand how many of you feel when reading our stuff.)
With the poo impacting the propeller, Marcus has deleted since last night the problematic tweets, along with others that undermine significantly the notion that Marcus was only kidding. (To find them, go to Tweleted.com and enter “Marcusfitz1.”)
Here’s a couple of deleted entries that were gone by the time we found the ones we mentioned last night.
“Ok another drive & kurt doesnt throw 2 larry. YOU OLD ASS MAN, THROW HIM THE DAMN BALL.”
“Bout time kurt! I almost had to come to jacksonville & strangle his ass lmao.”
Assuming that Marcus and Larry communicate on a fairly regular basis, it’s not a stretch to conclude that the attitude Marcus is projecting toward Warner reflects the tone and content of some of the things Larry has said privately.
So, yeah, there’s an apparent problem here. And it’ll be interesting to see what Larry Fitzgerald and Kurt Warner do to deal with it moving forward.