Cardinals' Fitzgerald just does his job, lets others do the talking
Because Larry Fitzgerald is the poster child for the anti-diva wide receiver, he doesn't spend much time telling anyone who will listen how good he is.
So it's left for his opponents to praise him.
Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor will have the biggest responsibility for trying to keep Fitzgerald from dominating Super Bowl XLIII the way he has the previous three playoff games.
Fitzgerald already has 419 receiving yards (on 23 catches with 5 touchdowns), more than anyone in NFL history in a single postseason.
So Taylor was asked if Fitzgerald, who had 96 receptions for 1,431 yards in the regular season, is the NFL's most dominant receiver.
"Right now, yeah," Taylor said. "But you all need to understand that Fitzgerald has been doing this since college (at Pitt). It's just now that we are on the biggest stage people are starting to see what he can do.
"This is nothing new to me. I've been seeing Fitzgerald do this since his college days."
Even a unique talent such as Fitzgerald hadn't been warmed by the national spotlight in his first four years in the NFL, when the Cardinals never achieved a winning season and suffered double-digit losses three of those seasons.
Now everyone knows how good he is - except, maybe him. Fitzgerald admits he wants to be considered elite but genuinely seems as if he hasn't convinced himself yet that he really is.
"I definitely aspire to be great," he said. "That's one of the reasons I play the game: to win, to be great. If you aren't trying to be the best, then I don't understand what your motivation is in this game as a player.
"Every day I step on the practice field, I want to work and get the best out of my day so that I can have good results on Sunday.
"I don't look too far in the future. I just look at today. How can I be the best player I can be on Wednesday? How can I be the best player I can be on Thursday? If I can continue to chip away like that, then I can be the best player on Sunday. That's just my mind-set."
Even Steelers Pro Bowl safety Troy Polamalu, who will sometimes be asked to help bracket Fitzgerald on Sunday, struggles to describe how he can be stopped.
"Nobody has really been able to contain him at all yet," Polamalu said. "When you have a guy like Larry Fitzgerald who can outjump two guys to get the football, there is nothing you can do about that.
"You just have to realize that he is a great player, they have a great quarterback (Kurt Warner), a great scheme, and he makes great plays."
When his play is examined game by game on film, Fitzgerald is even more impressive. His hand-eye coordination and ability to adjust to the ball in the air are incomparable.
He's big (6-feet-2, 226 pounds) and strong, and in the past two seasons he has become much better at picking up yards after the catch.
"It's the way he catches the ball," Taylor said. "He's got unbelievable hands. I think we've seen one drop in the 19 games that I watched. That speaks volumes right there."
Fitzgerald is the first to admit that he lacks elite, Devin Hester-type speed. But he's fast enough to have led the Cardinals with a 14.9-yard average per catch in the regular season, and he has upped that to 18.2 in the postseason.
Polamalu scoffed when told that Fitzgerald said he didn't consider himself very fast.
"But he can jump," Polamalu said. "I think he's just being very humble, and he is fast. He's a great athlete."
As much attention as the Steelers will lavish on Fitzgerald, they won't be able to double team him on every snap. And that's when he's especially dangerous, when he seems to win every jump ball.
"It's just his rebound skills, his high-point skills," Taylor said of Fitzgerald's ability to catch the ball at its highest point. "He's been coming down with the ball every time."