FanPost

Post Draft feelings and the Future


Like every fan of NFL football in the world right now, I think my team just became elite. At first, I was screaming at the TV about how stupid our picks were, then I got pretty excited as I believe we had a solid draft. Like so many of us here, I was expecting us to draft O Linemen and pass rushers early and often. I still think we should have drafted either Rudolph, Reed or Ayers or traded down in the 2nd, but only time will tell. overall, love the 'pistol' (PP7, eh? thoughts?, maybe 'pistol whip', I have never been great with nicknames) and our late LB'er choices although I wanted Herzlich, but was thrilled with our 2nd and 5th round selections.

I believe the Cards biggest problem moving forward is coaching and before you light your torches, let me explain myself.

I believe we did a good job of sticking to our board and that is good, but the players we drafted will only be successful and the we will only be successful if we use our players. Whiz did not do a good job on play calling last year. We had an Oline of maulers (except Lyle, but he holds his own and is great at pulling). Brown, Faneca, Keith and Lutui are all significantly better run blockers then they are at pass blocking. We did not the ball enough last year. I understand we were playing from behind a lot, and our RB's were fumbling, and our passing game was bad so teams could fill the box, but we had no balance.

When I look at this draft we drafted a RB (we already have 4 pretty good ones), a TE (we never use TE's), a FB (we never use FB's) and a WR (we already have pretty good WR's). My point is that unless we choose to use these players, they will be wasted picks. Last offseason we got Faneca, and Beanie was expected to breakout and we were all hoping for two 1,000 yard rushers. But what we got was 320 running plays called last year, 31 running plays less then the 2nd last redskins. and it was not because our YPC was bad. We were tied for 10th in the league with an avg. of 4.3 YPC. We only ran the ball 67 times on first down....brutal.

Its cool that we drafted a RB, please just use him.

Onto TE's. I understand that we drafted a receiving TE and our previous tight ends were awful so I like this pick, but we better throw to the TE more if we want to get any value from this pick. Our TE's had a combined 25 Rec last year and that is especially bad considering our crappy QB and Oline. You think our QB's would have been using their proverbial 'safety valves' a bit more. I think this should solve itself as getting a TE with hands and speed should do great things for whoever is behind center.

Hmmmm... FB in the 5th. Is there much difference between a FB in the 5th and undrafted? No. So for this guy not to be considered a bust by me, he will have to become quite a player. I think we should get Lott to beef up hightower and move him to the FB position. he is a good blocker, can catch, and would be great on special teams. I think their were still a lot of good players on the board when we made this pick and feel that in the 5th we should have gone O Line. Marcus Cannon was still on the board, a G with a second round grade and we picked a FB. so disappointing. Again, time will tell on these picks.

All I am saying is last year we loaded up to have a power running O and it never materialized, not because of the players, but because of the coaches. 

I am not even going to touch on bill davis last year as my doctor recommended that it is best for my health to stay away from all things bill davis. I am excited about our D, but this is the 23 time we have switched D coordinators in the past 4 years and I really hope horton works out. We have way to much talent on D for our D not to be a top 10 feared defense and it falls on Horton to turn that around.

For the cardinals to have success it is squarely on the shoulders of Whiz and Horton.

<em>This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Revenge of the Birds' (ROTB) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of ROTB's editors.</em>