The NFL trading deadline came and went and no one should be really surprised that nothing happened here with the Arizona Cardinals. One, there wasn't much out there. The other part of that story is that the football trade deadline doesn't typically get a lot of important movement. Yes, Carson Palmer got moved, and the price the Raiders paid makes the Kevin Kolb deal seem like chump change.
Anyway, thinking back to the Kevin Kolb move, a trade that we all still debate and will continue to debate, many thought that it was a done deal all the way back to the draft. It apparently almost didn't happen.
Last night, a FanPost went up that shared what a guy on another forum shared, a guy who apparently knows a guy in the Cardinals front office. I was shown this on Monday and planned on writing a few things about it. This is the first one.
First of all, this is a classic case of "I know guy that knows a guy..." I don't even know the guy, but khodder vouches for him and says he would believe every word of it. Over at footballsfuture.com, one of the contributors shared what he learned about several things when he got together with his longtime friend who know is a front office guy with the Cardinals.
It turns out that Kevin Kolb really was no sure thing and that were it not for the Philadelphia Eagles dropping their demands, Kyle Orton would have been the guy. Says the guy with the inside connection, "Rod (Graves) played that well."
Apparently, Philly made the first call with an offer and Graves listened to it but that was it. "He calls Denver, gets Elway and makes a deal for Orton," says the front office friend. "I was there for this. I don't know what it was but Rod said it was done. Said all we had to do was talk numbers with Orton's guys."
That is when Philly calls back and dropped their demands. It may have been a first round pick and Daryl Washington to start with. As a side note, if that was the proposal Philly made, I completely understand why Graves made that second phone call. That's crazy talk. There are many who think that DRC and a second rounder was too much. Imagine losing Washington and knowing that the team would have lost their 2012 first rounder. People would be jumping off of buildings here in town.
So, as a few guys said a lot, the Cards weren't dead set on Kolb. It is clear he was the guy they wanted the most, but Orton had a real shot. In my own personal "know a guy that knows a guy," I heard that the team had asked their PR people to have press releases prepared for Kolb, Orton and Bulger so that everything was ready to go when the trade/signing happened.
Knowing this and how the season has played out so far, does what you think change? Would the team be any better off? Orton has not been much so far and his team is dreadful. Any thoughts?