There are several pieces of information traditionally included in an NFL trade report, among them the existence of a second NFL team. On Saturday, news of Marvin Harrison Jr.’s impending departure from Arizona arrived without that particular flourish.

According to Adam Schefter and Ian Rapoport, the Cardinals are finalizing a trade involving Harrison and have informed him he will be inactive against Detroit on Sunday. The acquiring team had not been reported. The public had been given enough information to say goodbye, but not enough to wish him well anywhere specific.

It is a remarkable emotional order of operations. Usually, when someone leaves a job, there is at least a vague announcement about an exciting opportunity. Harrison’s exciting opportunity was, for the moment, being described entirely through its distance from his current employer.

You don’t have to go home. You do have to clear waivers on the group chat.

To be clear, an undisclosed destination does not mean the Cardinals are driving Harrison to the airport and letting him choose a gate. There are negotiations, people involved, presumably a document with two logos on it. But the public presentation has the unmistakable atmosphere of a roommate telling you he has already helped carry your mattress outside while you are still explaining that you haven’t found a place.

The mattress is outside, Marvin. We can discuss the neighborhood later.

Houston has surfaced as a possible destination, which would give the story a reassuring football shape. A new offense. A fresh start. People could begin producing graphics of Harrison in a different uniform and explaining why this was actually the ideal outcome. Until then, the transaction exists in an unusually pure state: Arizona has decided that the next phase of his career should take place beyond Arizona’s supervision.

For a player selected fourth overall in 2024, this is a considerable revision to the welcome package. A franchise spends a pick like that imagining the next decade. Two years later, the public is trying to establish a forwarding address.

Harrison has five catches for 85 yards through four games this season. There is a football argument to be had about how that happened, how much responsibility belongs to whom, and whether another organization can make better use of him. That argument deserves more care than a Saturday trade alert can provide. The immediate spectacle is that his absence from Sunday’s game has been settled more publicly than his presence anywhere afterward.

Eventually, another team will emerge and the usual machinery will resume. There will be compensation to evaluate, a depth chart to rearrange and a general manager explaining how long he has admired the player. Harrison will be wanted somewhere in a way that can be expressed with a city and a jersey.

But he will still have spent part of a Saturday as the subject of a nationally reported transaction whose most firmly established term was that he should not come to work tomorrow.

We don’t know which team you’re going to.

But it ain’t here.