Offseason lists! We have officially hit that part of the offseason. There isn't much more than a bunch of rankings and lists. The latest should rile up Arizona Cardinals fans nicely because it ranks the quarterback situations in the NFL. Guess what? Arizona is among the worst.
In a column for Rotoworld, Patrick Dougherty writes the Cardinals have the 25th best QB situation (or seventh worst) in the NFL.
Carson Palmer's 2014 began with a shoulder injury and ended with a torn ACL. In between were six dynamite starts, but Palmer's doomsday clock is ticking. Palmer is a crumbling statue who can't be counted on to stay healthy for 16 games. That's the bad news. The really bad news is that there are no reinforcements behind him. Drew Stanton is a pick-happy journeyman, and Logan Thomas was so shaky as a rookie that his practices got him benched. Palmer will keep the Cardinals competitive when he's on the field, but quarterback is looking like the Achilles' heel for an otherwise ascendant team.
Palmer is a crumbling statue?
Yes, he suffered injuries last year and he has been banged up a few times in his career. That comes with the territory of having 35-year old quarterback. However, he took all but three snaps in 2013, and those three snaps he didn't take were not because of injury, they were because the Cardinals went with a direct snap to Patrick Peterson.
Stanton pick happy? He threw two less picks than TDs in 2014. In 2009, yes you could say that, when he had no touchdowns six interceptions.
Stanton proved to be as capable a backup as there is. He will probably find land himself a nice contract and a starting job after this season. The one thing you can say about Stanton is he is prone to getting injured.
There is no real defense of what he writes about Thomas, but he was a project when he was drafted.
Is the Cards' QB situation really that bad? Is it worse than the Jay Cutler situation in Chicago? Hardly. The Cardinals are 13-2 in Palmer's last 15 starts. The only thing bad about the situation is his age, and we have seen talented quarterbacks play a long time.
While it is understandable Arizona is not among the top 10 situations, it should be something closer to the middle than the bottom.