WHO AND WHEN?
Can Cardinals afford to wait to draft a quarterback?
If, like most NFL teams, the Cardinals’ front office operates under a plan that extends three to four years in the future, why not wait until 2018 to draft a quarterback to eventually replace Carson Palmer?
That quarterback class is expected to be stronger than this year’s, and the Cardinals could have extra, compensatory selections in the third and fourth rounds, giving them more assets to use in trading up.
The problem with that theory, said General Manager Steve Keim, is that a lot can happen in the next year.
“You can look ahead and say there are two or three that we have watched on tape that are fantastic,” Keim said. “But if they are (picked) one, two or three in the draft – and I hope we are not picking anything but 32 – how are we going to get up there and get them?
“Even if I had 11 comp picks, that is not going to get it done. I just don’t think you can rely on that.”
So what’s available in 2018 is not going to have an impact on the Cardinals’ decision in this draft, which is Thursday through Saturday.
“If you have a player you fell in love with, you take them,” Keim said.
Keim and coach Bruce Arians are doing a high-wire act when it comes to acquiring the team’s quarterback of the future. On one side of the pole that keeps them balanced on the wire is the knowledge that Palmer is 37 and this could be his last season. On the other end of the pole is the talent in this year’s draft.
In the Cardinals’ view, there are a halfdozen or so quarterbacks in this draft capable of one day starting in the NFL. Do they like one well enough to take with the 13th overall pick? Enough to trade up?
Or, do they have their eyes on say, the fifth- or sixth-highest-rated quarterback, and gamble they can get him later in the draft?
Arians, 64, would like to leave the team in good hands at quarterback whenever Arians decides to retire.
Keim, 44, would like to find Palmer’s replacement because Keim would like to stay employed.
“I do have four small kids,” he joked. “It’s certainly going to be beneficial to do that.”
Since moving to Arizona in 1988, the Cardinals have used two first-round picks to draft quarterbacks: 2004 on Matt Leinart and 1990 on Timm Rosenbach, selected the year before in the supplemental draft.
The franchise’s best quarterbacks over the past 29 seasons have been two veterans who played for two other teams first.
Kurt Warner was signed after stints with the Rams and Giants. Carson Palmer was obtained in a trade after playing for the Bengals and Raiders.
The Cardinals’ most recent long-term, homegrown starter was Jake Plummer, a second-round pick in 1997.
The challenge in evaluating college quarterbacks, Arians said, is judging their toughness, leadership skills and ability to learn the offensive system.
The Cardinals have visited with most of the top prospects in this draft, and Arians’ usual practice is to introduce play concepts to the player, take a break, then challenge the player to regurgitate what he was shown earlier.
If the player is successful “then you know they can learn any system,” Arians said. “You can easily judge arm strength and athleticism but not the brain.”
Many quarterbacks coming out of college today have operated in the spread offense, receiving plays from the sideline and never huddling. Are they willing to practice on their own so they can operate a huddle and direct 10 other men?
“I tell all of these kids who have not called plays, ‘Get a script from somebody and start practicing in the mirror,’ ” Arians said. “If you’re stammering and can’t call the play out, they (other players) are going to be like, ‘Get this a--hole out of here. We can’t win with him.’ ”
Finding someone they can win with is the tricky part. Is it North Carolina’s Mitchell Trubisky? Clemson’s Deshaun Watson? Notre Dame’s DeShone Kizer? Texas Tech’s Patrick Mahomes?
If the Cardinals stay at No. 13 in the draft, at least two of those players are likely to be gone.
“You can be in a situation where every quarterback in the draft is still there at 13, or there could be three or four gone,” Keim said. “You just have to be prepared and trust your board, which is one thing that we have done.”
The Cardinals insist their draft board was built without 2018 in mind, at least when it comes to the most important position on the field. They would like to draft a quarterback, but they aren’t going to teeter on the top step of a ladder to reach for one.
“People start taking quarterbacks just because they have to have one,” Arians said. “They will take a guy they must have had in the first round and you had in the third or fourth round but he was the next best quarterback. So they took the position over the player.”