All Quiet on the Western Front

April 23, 2009

Thankfully, trade talks involving Anquan Boldin appear to remain speculation at best. My hope is general manager Rod Graves and coach Ken Whisenhunt have set the acquisition cost prohibitively high, so any team serious about trading for Boldin would have to part with an unsavory amount of players and picks.

Here are a few quick thoughts on the rumor mill:

I don’t foresee Boldin being traded for another player or combination of players. Rumors involving Baltimore’s first-round draft pick plus Todd Heap as a “sweetener” are just ludicrous:

Why on earth would the Cardinals give up Boldin, a quick outlet receiver that can go the distance on any given play, for an aging 6′ 5″ jump ball target like Heap? The Cardinals would lose the ability to stretch the field to acquire a guy whose abilities mimick what the Cardinals already have in Larry Fitzgerald. Boldin is dangerous with inside routes and wide-receiver screens, something that can’t be easily replaced by existing wide receivers Steve Breaston or Jerheme Urban. The argument could be made that second-year pro Early Doucet will develop into that role, but with only 14 receptions in 2008, it’s hard to mortage the team’s future on his development.

Similarly, this isn’t baseball. It’s very seldom for one player to be traded for another. Coaches like to develop players through the draft, so unless both coaches have personally worked with the opposing players before (extremely unlikely!), it’s next to impossible to exchange players with the perfect personality, scheme, and contract fit.

Ideally, Boldin remains with the team, Arizona adds some complimentary offensive weapons this weekend, and the Cardinals wrap up a successful offseason having retained the core nucleus from the 2008 NFC Championship team. With playoff experience under their belts and an infusion of talented youth, the Cardinals will have legitimate Superbowl aspirations in 2009.

Category: 2009 Season, Editorial | Tags: Anquan Boldin, Early Doucet, Jerheme Urban, Ken Whisenhunt, Rod Graves, Steve Breaston

EA Sports “Madden” to feature Larry Fitzgerald?

April 16, 2009

It’s official. The 2009 season may go entirely up in smoke. Rumors today say that Larry Fitzgerald will be featured on the cover of EA Sports Madden NFL 10 football game, which, with its accompanying well-documented curse, all but guarantees the Arizona Cardinals will miss the playoffs entirely in 2009.

Let’s just hope Coach Ken Whisenhunt and Rod Graves heed this sobering news and put the kibosh on any thoughts of trading Anquan Boldin.

If the Madden Curse holds true, they’ll certainly need Boldin’s wide receivering services!

Category: 2009 Season, Editorial | Tags: Anquan Boldin, Ken Whisenhunt, Larry Fitzgerald, Rod Graves

Arizona Cardinals 2009 NFL Draft Picks

March 12, 2009

As it stands now, the Arizona Cardinals will have (7) picks in the 2009 NFL Draft:

Round 1 Pick #31
Round 2 Pick #63
Round 3 Pick #95
Round 4 Pick #127 (approx)
Round 5 Pick #159 (approx)
Round 6 Pick #191 (approx)
Round 7 Pick #223 (approx)

This tentative draft order won’t be finalized until later this spring when compensatory selections (free agent departures) are awarded to clubs at the bottom of Rounds 3-7.

The Cardinals are expected to receive one compensatory selection for the departure of offensive coordinator Todd Haley.

Category: 2009 Season, NFL Draft | Tags: Bill Bidwell, Rod Graves

Road to the Superbowl: Years of futility led to success in the NFL Draft

January 24, 2009

Imagine you were building a NFL team. You’d want to mix in a few savvy veterans, but largely you’d look to build a foundation of success through the draft.

While drafting NFL players is an inexact science, generally speaking players drafted on the first day are better players than the guys drafted on the second day, and players drafted early in round one, say pick #7, are theoretically better football players than guys picked 28th.

Is it any surprise then, that the Arizona Cardinals, perennial losers who between 2000-2007 averaged only 5.4 wins per season (second worst in the league behind only Detroit’s 5.0 wins per season average) were able to build a Superbowl caliber team through the draft? Since 2000 the Cardinals have averaged a top-10 pick in the first round of the NFL Draft:

Year _ Record Pick Player:
2000 __ 6-10 _ #7 Thomas Jones RB (Jets)
2001 __ 3-13 _ #2 Leonard Davis OG (Cowboys)
2002 __ 7-9 __ #12 Wendell Bryant (no longer in football)
2003 __ 5-11 _ #17 Bryant Johnson WR (49ers)
2004 __ 4-12 _ #3 Larry Fitzgerald WR (Cardinals)
2005 __ 6-10 _ #8 Antrel Rolle FS (Cardinals)
2006 __ 5-11 _ #10 Matt Leinart QB (Cardinals)
2007 __ 5-11 _ #5 Levi Brown OT (Cardinals)
2008 __ 8-8 _ #16 Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie CB (Cardinals)

Four out of the past five Cardinals’ 1st round draft picks will start against the Steelers in Superbowl XLIII in Tampa. Fitzgerald already set a NFL Record for receiving yards in a postseason (419 yards, surpassing Jerry Rice), Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie has 15.0 tackles, 2 INTs, and 7 passes defensed, Antrel Rolle has an INT and scored on a 27-yard fumble recovery in the NFC Wildcard win over Atlanta, and Levi Brown has helped pave the way toward a league best 333 rushing yards this postseason.

Len Pasquarelli sensed the shift in the Cardinals fortunes with his column titled Solid drafts move Cardinals, Vikings forward immediately following the 2005 NFL Draft:

You don’t want to look behind you very often, since someone could be quickly gaining ground. With what transpired this weekend in the NFL draft, the 2004 division champion Seattle Seahawks might consider heeding that advice and avoid swiveling too quickly. Stare too long into the rear-view mirror, and the Seahawks are going to find an ascendant Arizona Cardinals team creeping up from behind.

Green went into the draft wanting to get quicker, and he accomplished that with most of his early choices, in particular cornerback Antrel Rolle. The Cardinals are not shy about throwing rookies into the fray — four of their seven draft picks from a year ago started as rookies — and Rolle has already been penciled into the lineup. Second-round tailback J.J. Arrington, a player the sometimes transparent Green has been touting since the combine workouts, could start as well. Linebacker Darryl Blackstock and guard Elton Brown were flat-out steals, respectively, in the third and fourth rounds.

The following season, Todd McShay glowingly recaps the Cardinals 2006 draft:

Best pick: Matt Leinart, QB, USC. Leinart’s fall quickly became the Cardinals’ fortune as the tenth pick. The former Trojans southpaw will get a year to learn behind Kurt Warner before being given the keys to a car that is already fully loaded with running back Edgerrin James and wide receivers Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin. Other great values include tight end Leonard Pope (Georgia) in the third round and defensive tackle Gabe Watson (Michigan) in the fourth round.
Worst pick: Deuce Lutui, OG, USC. This is the worst pick of an outstanding draft from top to bottom. Lutui was a good value in the second round but the Cardinals could have addressed another position of need here and got a quality guard later in the draft.
Work to do: One of the Cardinals’ top areas of need entering this year’s draft was in the defensive secondary, yet they failed to select a cornerback or safety with any of their seven picks. Depth is especially thin at safety behind strong safety Adrian Wilson and aging free safety Robert Griffith.

John Clayton identified the Cardinals as winners in the 2007 draft:

Cardinals assistant head coach Russ Grimm is one of the best offensive line teachers in the NFL and he usually doesn’t go into the personnel office asking for high draft picks. But Grimm believed Levi Brown of Penn State was a better fit for his offensive line than Joe Thomas. With the fifth pick, Grimm got his tackle. Remember, the Cardinals are a left-handed team because they have a left-handed quarterback in Matt Leinart. Brown can protect his blindside at right tackle. Plus, he gives Edgerrin James a bigger, more powerful blocking style to get some power runs to the right. Thomas might be the better long-term pass-blocker and probably would have beaten out Brown for the No. 5 pick if he was available. But Grimm got the guy he wanted. The Cardinals also came out ahead in getting defensive tackle Alan Branch in the second round. The team is moving to a 3-4 alignment in 2007 or 2008, and he can be the nose tackle to eat up space and draw extra blocking attention.

Recent draft success is mostly attibuted to general manager Rod Graves, who starting in 2004, has brought a succession of starting players to the Cardinals through the draft.

In the line of people receiving credit for the Cardinals’ remarkable rise to Super Bowl status, one is at the rear. Low-key general manager Rod Graves seldom receives praise for much of anything. Yet it was Graves who:

• Ran the team’s 2004 draft along with coach Dennis Green, now inarguably the best in the team’s Arizona era.

• Grabbed quarterback Kurt Warner off the scrap heap when nobody else appeared to want him.

• Selected Ken Whisenhunt as the team’s head coach before the Steelers had a chance to wrap up their own coaching search that resulted in the hiring of Mike Tomlin.

• Ran this year’s draft, which landed cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromarite, already a star, and such promising players as defensive end Calais Campbell and running back Tim Hightower.

Category: 2008 Season, Editorial, NFL Draft | Tags: Adrian Wilson, Alan Branch, Anquan Boldin, Antrel Rolle, Calais Campbell, Deuce Lutui, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, Edgerrin James, Elton Brown, Gabe Watson, J.J. Arrington, Ken Whisenhunt, Larry Fitzgerald, Leonard Pope, Levi Brown, Matt Leinart, NFL Draft, Rod Graves, Russ Grimm, Tim Hightower