Larry Fitzgerald spent his entire 17-year career with the Arizona Cardinals, and heading into his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction, he’s finally opening up about why he never explored a move elsewhere.

“I think at 25 I realized this is a place that I see myself living for the rest of my life,” Larry Fitzgerald told Michael Irvin on The White House. “This is my home. I take responsibility for this community. And yeah, is there a possibility that I could go elsewhere and have success? Possibility, but it’s not a guarantee.”

“And I always used to think about something Tom Moore used always to tell us, and a lot of the young people never get it because they don’t know what it is, but he would always say, The grass is not greener on the other side; it’s greenest next to the septic tank. It means you gotta go through some things in life, and sometimes it’s nasty, it’s smelly, it’s funky, but what’s on the other side of hard is usually good.”

Back in 2004, the Cardinals took a chance on a kid out of Pittsburgh with the third overall pick. Through every rough patch and every high point of a 17-year career, Larry Fitzgerald never really wavered on Arizona, and Arizona never wavered on him.

The numbers speak for themselves. Standing 6 feet 3 and built like a tank at 218 pounds, Fitzgerald used every bit of that frame to rack up 17,492 receiving yards, good for second all-time behind only Jerry Rice.

His 1,432 catches also sit at number two on the all-time list, and his 121 touchdown grabs land him at sixth. Add in 11 Pro Bowl nods and a First Team All-Pro season in 2008, and you start to understand why Canton came calling.

With Fitzgerald on the roster, the Cardinals went 125-136-2, a .479 win percentage, according to Statmuse. Not exactly a dominant stretch, and despite all his personal success, he never won a championship.

Fitzgerald admitted he did think about leaving Arizona at some point.

“I would be lying to you if it didn’t cross my mind; I didn’t think about it, maybe even had conversations about it, but never seriously tried to put it in motion,” he said, per ESPN. “I loved where I was at. And quite frankly, I don’t know if it would’ve meant the same for me if I went somewhere where it was already some super team.”

However, he stayed with the team. What sticks with him most, though, isn’t the yardage or the touchdowns. It’s the people.

“I’m really proud of the work I did in the community, the organizations we partnered with. I’m proud of the relationships I’ve developed with my teammates, coaching staff, administration, media,” Fitzgerald said during a news conference Thursday. “Those things are what I really think about. Not often do I think about the catches and the touchdowns. I think about the authenticity of the relationships I was able to develop.”

He walked away quietly after the 2020 season, no big announcement, just a fitting exit for a guy who never needed the spotlight. Six years after his final NFL season, he is now set to enter the Hall of Fame on Saturday in Canton.