Larry Fitzgerald

It was so cold, and so dark, those early winter days at Valley Forge Military Academy hundreds of miles away from everything he knew. Larry Fitzgerald was a kid in culture shock. His long hair? Gone. His freedom? Gone. His future? On hold, replaced by a present that he didn't know or particularly like, with pre-dawn wake-up calls and stringent schedules and shiny shoes. Fitzgerald just wanted to catch footballs, but there he was in 2001, a spoiled little teenager derailed by sub-par grades, wearing a uniform and trying to earn the simple privilege of using the telephone.

Top 100. . . F-3 Quarterbacks. . . F-5 2008 statistics. . . F-6 Running backs. . . F-7 Fantasy nuggets. . . Centerspread Wide receivers. . . F-10 Injuries. . . F-11 Tight ends/kickers. . . F-12 Defenses. . . F-14 Inside one league's draft. . . F-15 ABOUT THE WRITER Sports writer Ed Barkowitz has been writing about fantasy football since 2001. You can read his reports weekly in the Daily News. 2008 FANTASY Award winners, as voted on by Daily News readers: MVP: Kurt Warner, QB, Cardinals Best quarterback: Kurt Warner, Cardinals Best wide receiver: Anquan Boldin, Cardinals Best running back: Adrian Peterson, Vikings Least valuable player: Edgerrin James, Cardinals Worst quarterback: Marc Bulger, Rams Worst wide receiver: Braylon Edwards, Browns Worst running back: Joseph Addai, Colts ABOUT THE COVER Three players who could have a huge fantasy impact this season: Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and Vikings running back Adrian Peterson.

Les Bowen: How the Cardinals will win 1. Score a whole lotta points: Nobody disputes that the Cards have superior weapons. What nearly everyone assumes is that the Steelers' superior defense will be the difference. The same assumption preceded the NFC Championship Game, with the Eagles' defense playing the role of the Steelers. If the Cards can keep Kurt Warner from being blasted into the old folks' home, they really can win. 2. Larry Fitzgerald, Larry Fitzgerald and more Larry Fitzgerald: There is a lot of talk about how the Steelers will be aiming to shut down the guy who has already set a postseason record for receiving yardage.

Scott Bordow, East Valley Tribune columnist: Back in August, I predicted the Cardinals would finish 7-9. In early December, I wrote that they were an immature, lazy team that didn't know how to handle success. And, truth be told, I wasn't sure they would beat the Atlanta Falcons in the wild-card game, much less go to Carolina and thump the Panthers. So, yes, I've been one of those media types the Cardinals have used as a punching bag these last couple of weeks.

On Thanksgiving eve, Mike Muscella received a call on his cell phone. The number didn't ring a bell, but the voice sounded familiar. It was Larry Fitzgerald. He was sitting on the tarmac in Phoenix, waiting for the Cardinals' charter to take off for Philadelphia. "Coach," Muscella recalled Fitzgerald saying. "Meet me at this restaurant in town at 7 o'clock tonight. Bring your family, I am treating you guys to dinner. " The Cardinals' flight was delayed, so the group never made it to dinner.

Cardinals receiver Anquan Boldin returned to practice yesterday and said he has no doubt he will play in the NFC championship game against the Eagles on Sunday at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. This time around, the coaching staff appears to be of the same mind. "Obviously, we've got to see him do some work this week in practice," Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt said. "But like we said last week, if he was ready to go, even in a limited role, we would have liked to have had him. "If he continues to progress like we think he is, I have no doubts that he would play.

Larry Fitzgerald is a lot like a $1 million luxury car. A lot of us would love to wake up tomorrow morning and find one in our driveway, but the chances of it happening are about the same as Randy Moss catching a pass from Donovan McNabb this fall. Fitzgerald, of course, is the Arizona Cardinals wide receiver on the wish list of just about every Eagles fan. Over the weekend, some media reports surfaced that coach Andy Reid's team had made trade offers in an attempt to pry the former Valley Forge Military Academy star away from the desert.

When he began this semester at Valley Forge Military Academy, Craig Bokor sat rigid in the mess hall for three straight days. Even an attempt to eat was going to get him reprimanded, he decided, "because I'm putting my ketchup on my hot dog or something. " Suddenly, he wasn't a star high school lineman from a state championship team, wooed by Michigan and Penn State and Miami, ultimately signed by Pittsburgh. He was a lowly plebe, expected for his first several weeks at Valley Forge to square all his meals - take his fork straight up, then across to his mouth, then back across and down to the table before he could begin to chew.

TAMPA - Uneasy rest the flowing braids that wear the crown as Super Bowl week's dominant player. Or so an eloquent sage once said. Shakespeare? Emmitt Smith? Details are fuzzy. Talking to Larry Fitzgerald, though, you get the sense he isn't sure that he's "all that," the way the media, his teammates, the opposing Pittsburgh Steelers and the public seem to think. "It's a little different, a little weird," Fitzgerald, 25, said yesterday. "I'm trying to get there. I want to be a dominant player in this game.

Tonight at 8:15 at Lincoln Financial Field. TV: 6ABC, NFL Network; Radio: WYSP-FM 94.1,WIP-AM610. Line: Eagles by 3. THE MATCHUP EAGLES CORNERBACKS VS. CARDINALS RECEIVERS The Defenders It?s mandatory to have three quality cornerbacks when playing the Cardinals, whose trio of receivers are the most prolific in the NFL. The Eagles do in Asante Samuel, Sheldon Brown and Lito Sheppard, but Samuel is listed as doubtful after...

Nnamdi Asomugha never expected this. Never expected to be 3-6. Never expected to be used in the curious way he has been used by Eagles defensive coordinator Juan Castillo this season. He's one of the best shutdown corners in the business. Spent the better part of seven seasons with the Raiders being assigned to the other team's best receiver and essentially putting him in witness protection. That's what Castillo should be doing with him, but he's not. That's what Castillo should have done with him yesterday, but he didn't.

Top 100. . . F-3 Quarterbacks. . . F-5 2008 statistics. . . F-6 Running backs. . . F-7 Fantasy nuggets. . . Centerspread Wide receivers. . . F-10 Injuries. . . F-11 Tight ends/kickers. . . F-12 Defenses. . . F-14 Inside one league's draft. . . F-15 ABOUT THE WRITER Sports writer Ed Barkowitz has been writing about fantasy football since 2001. You can read his reports weekly in the Daily News. 2008 FANTASY Award winners, as voted on by Daily News readers: MVP: Kurt Warner, QB, Cardinals Best quarterback: Kurt Warner, Cardinals Best wide receiver: Anquan Boldin, Cardinals Best running back: Adrian Peterson, Vikings Least valuable player: Edgerrin James, Cardinals Worst quarterback: Marc Bulger, Rams Worst wide receiver: Braylon Edwards, Browns Worst running back: Joseph Addai, Colts ABOUT THE COVER Three players who could have a huge fantasy impact this season: Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and Vikings running back Adrian Peterson.

Les Bowen: How the Cardinals will win 1. Score a whole lotta points: Nobody disputes that the Cards have superior weapons. What nearly everyone assumes is that the Steelers' superior defense will be the difference. The same assumption preceded the NFC Championship Game, with the Eagles' defense playing the role of the Steelers. If the Cards can keep Kurt Warner from being blasted into the old folks' home, they really can win. 2. Larry Fitzgerald, Larry Fitzgerald and more Larry Fitzgerald: There is a lot of talk about how the Steelers will be aiming to shut down the guy who has already set a postseason record for receiving yardage.

TAMPA - Uneasy rest the flowing braids that wear the crown as Super Bowl week's dominant player. Or so an eloquent sage once said. Shakespeare? Emmitt Smith? Details are fuzzy. Talking to Larry Fitzgerald, though, you get the sense he isn't sure that he's "all that," the way the media, his teammates, the opposing Pittsburgh Steelers and the public seem to think. "It's a little different, a little weird," Fitzgerald, 25, said yesterday. "I'm trying to get there. I want to be a dominant player in this game.

The objective was to cover Larry Fitzgerald better than the Eagles did in that now-infamous NFC championship game at University of Phoenix Stadium. To do so, it meant showing up for the first half of Fitzgerald's first news conference at Super Bowl XLIII, where the Arizona Cardinals - yes, the Arizona Cardinals - will take on the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday at Raymond James Stadium. At 4 p.m. yesterday, Fitzgerald sat at a makeshift metal podium inside a giant tent just outside the Grand Hyatt hotel that could have been housing the Eagles this week if only they had done a better job of covering the dreadlocked receiver with the sportswriter father.

It's official: Larry Fitzgerald is the most feared receiver in professional football. The Cardinals wideout has the NFL postseason records to back it up and the film of how he tortured the vaunted Eagles defense yesterday before halftime in the NFC title game. He was still around University of Phoenix Stadium making important plays at the end. On his way to 152 receiving yards, Fitzgerald made a strong opening statement. It looked as if he was going to be stopped when the most feared hitter on the Eagles defense, Brian Dawkins, delivered Fitzgerald a shot in the left hip. Fitzgerald didn't seem to notice.

It was so cold, and so dark, those early winter days at Valley Forge Military Academy hundreds of miles away from everything he knew. Larry Fitzgerald was a kid in culture shock. His long hair? Gone. His freedom? Gone. His future? On hold, replaced by a present that he didn't know or particularly like, with pre-dawn wake-up calls and stringent schedules and shiny shoes. Fitzgerald just wanted to catch footballs, but there he was in 2001, a spoiled little teenager derailed by sub-par grades, wearing a uniform and trying to earn the simple privilege of using the telephone.

Scott Bordow, East Valley Tribune columnist: Back in August, I predicted the Cardinals would finish 7-9. In early December, I wrote that they were an immature, lazy team that didn't know how to handle success. And, truth be told, I wasn't sure they would beat the Atlanta Falcons in the wild-card game, much less go to Carolina and thump the Panthers. So, yes, I've been one of those media types the Cardinals have used as a punching bag these last couple of weeks.

Cardinals receiver Anquan Boldin returned to practice yesterday and said he has no doubt he will play in the NFC championship game against the Eagles on Sunday at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. This time around, the coaching staff appears to be of the same mind. "Obviously, we've got to see him do some work this week in practice," Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt said. "But like we said last week, if he was ready to go, even in a limited role, we would have liked to have had him. "If he continues to progress like we think he is, I have no doubts that he would play.

On Thanksgiving eve, Mike Muscella received a call on his cell phone. The number didn't ring a bell, but the voice sounded familiar. It was Larry Fitzgerald. He was sitting on the tarmac in Phoenix, waiting for the Cardinals' charter to take off for Philadelphia. "Coach," Muscella recalled Fitzgerald saying. "Meet me at this restaurant in town at 7 o'clock tonight. Bring your family, I am treating you guys to dinner. " The Cardinals' flight was delayed, so the group never made it to dinner.