With his back to the ball and a defender on his hip, Fitzgerald has become the master at looking over his shoulder, or head, locating the ball and watching it land in hands as big as turkey platters.
How he does it, well, that's hard to explain.
He practices it daily and makes it clear to quarterbacks exactly where he wants the ball.But if making the catch were that easy, well, Fitzgerald wouldn't be about to sign an eight-year contract worth a maximum of $120 million.
"He does work on it, but you obviously still have to have a massive amount of ability," quarterback Kevin Kolb said. "He knows what's going to happen every time, and he knows what his strengths and weaknesses are."
Stay after a training-camp practice, or arrive early for a game, and there's a good chance you'll see Fitzgerald working on the skill.
A few years ago, offensive-line coach Russ Grimm told Fitzgerald about a drill Grimm used when he coached tight ends with the Redskins. The player would stand with his back to Grimm, who would lob the ball over the player's head. The player would have to locate the ball and try to catch it.
Fitzgerald loved the drill, and before every game, he has Grimm throw him passes.
Grimm laughs off the significance of his contribution.
"I don't think that's the reason he can do it," Grimm said. "He can locate the ball in the air, and he's got a great feel, big hands and great concentration on the ball."
Fitzgerald displayed the skill in the preseason opener against Oakland, when he made an over-the-head, one-handed catch for a 43-yard gain.
But in degree of difficulty, that wasn't close to the one he made a few days before in practice. Fitzgerald's made those catches so often in practice that his teammates, coaches and reporters almost have become numb to it.
Fitzgerald doesn't view it as anything special, either. He has loved catching a football since he was 7. As a ball boy with the Minnesota Vikings, he was around greatness every day in receivers Cris Carter and Randy Moss.
At the University of Pittsburgh, coach Walt Harris and assistant J.D. Brookhart drilled Fitzgerald hard on that technique in every practice "because it just gives the quarterback so much room for error," Fitzgerald said.
"I'm pretty confident in my eye-hand coordination," Fitzgerald said. "But it's something I've always worked on."
The play looks simple, but there is precision involved.
Usually split wide, Fitzgerald's route carries him down the yard-line numbers stenciled on the field. Ideally, he likes to get the defender on his hip and have the ball delivered 6 yards outside the numbers.
"If the ball is 6 yards outside you can always run out to it," Fitzgerald said one recent day at camp.
He dismounted from his Segway to demonstrate.
"The key is the have him here, on my hip," Fitzgerald said. "I can slow him down, and if he runs over me, that's pass interference. I can speed up, I can slow down. He's at my mercy at that point."
What's difficult for quarterbacks is to learn to throw before Fitzgerald is in that position, trusting he will get there. On similar routes, most other receivers like the ball out if front of them, where they can get both hands on it.
Not Fitzgerald.
"First day I worked with him, I was throwing it over his shoulder like a normal guy," Kolb said, "and he was like, 'No, I want it over my back shoulder.'
"That way he squeezes those guys with that big body, and that's where he's going to catch the ball."
If the catch were that simple, however, everyone could do it. Fitzgerald's one of the few who can.
Other receivers, such as Moss and the Packers' Greg Jennings, can look up, locate the ball, then run to a spot to catch it, Fitzgerald said.
"I have to be able to watch the ball through its flight and watch it into my hands," Fitzgerald said.
Maybe he feels that way, but it doesn't always appear to be so. Often, Fitzgerald's head seems to rotate like he's in a horror movie, and there is no possible way he can see the ball through its entire flight.
Can he?
"It definitely goes to a blind spot at some point," Cardinals receivers coach John McNulty said. "You can't track that ball the whole way."
The over-the-head/shoulders/neck catch has become a staple in Fitzgerald's cupboard of techniques, because it plays to his strengths.
He's fast, but there are faster receivers.
What Fitzgerald does have is size (6 feet 3, 218 pounds), strength, large hands and great coordination.
And if that play isn't working?
"Then he can also just catch the 40-yard bomb with one hand," McNulty said, "and they're not many guys who can do that, either."
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