Larry Fitzgerald's hands set him apart. OK, a lot of what Fitzgerald does sets him apart. But among dominant big-bodied wide receivers of the last decade, there were a lot of guys who put up big yardage yet dropped plenty of passes. (Including Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, Brandon Marshall and Dwayne Bowe.)
When Fitzgerald gets his mitts on a pass for the Arizona Cardinals, he doesn't let it go. It seems that way anyhow, and ProFootballFocus' numbers back up the claim. The site looked through the past three years of numbers to determine the receivers with the best "drop rate." That was their number of "catchable passes" with their number of drops.
We recommend checking out the entire post, but here was the top 10:
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- Earl Bennett
- Larry Fitzgerald
- Kevin Walter
- Lance Moore
- Malcom Floyd
- Reggie Wayne
- Jabar Gaffney
- Jason Avant
- Austin Collie
- Sidney Rice
Fitzgerald sticks out on this list because it's primarily comprised of slot receivers. This makes sense because smaller guys like Bennett, Moore and Avant catch shorter passes. And they get their jobs because of their hands, not their overwhelming physical skill set.
Floyd and Rice are the other two true vertical receivers on the list, although they struggle to stay healthy. That's the amazing part of Fitzgerald's game: There really aren't any holes.