Arizona Cardinals Preseaon Week 2 Stock: Risers and Fallers

Risers

Phillip Sims

After a lackluster 2nd and 3rd quarter, Sims came in the fourth and played great. His 8 for 13 for 82 yards looks like what Stanton put up last night. If he can continue practicing well this week it wouldn't shock me to see him get more playing time in week 3 against Oakland.

Marion Grice

With Chris Johnson's hamstring injury it becomes possible that the Cards keep a 4th or even 5th running back. Grice may have ended up with 0 net rushing yards, but he was great as a pass catcher with 3 catches for 32 yards.

J.J. Nelson

In case anyone was worried, Nelson's spot is secure. While I don't believe he will have the same impact as John Brown last year, mainly because he is less polished than Brown was, he clearly is going to play this year.

Rodney Gunter

He held his own against the first team Chargers and that is enough. If he can actually improve into the inside pass rushing threat the team wants him to be, then that defense is going to be downright scary.

David Johnson

Chris who? Johnson delivered. After a few bad runs, full of "dancing", Arians told him to stop and he took coaching tidbit to average 5.1 yards per carry.

Jonathan Cooper

We haven't heard much about Cooper in training camp, which is great news. On Saturday night Cooper was simply manhandling people with impressive run blocking.

Josh Mauro and Alani Fua

Both guys looked great in the fourth quarter. Fua was making tackles all over the field and Mauro did a good job stopping the run.

Fallers

Jimmy Legree -

Brittan Golden

On his punt return there was no gain. No big deal. What is a big deal is he clearly thought about tossing the ball to another Cards player, which is without a doubt the worst Cardinal (see what I did there) sin. It's tough seeing him making the team when Jaron Brown is playing about the same.

D.J. Humphries

Wow, did he look bad. D.J. was getting beaten like a drum and everyone was able to see why Arians has given him so much criticism. He's a rookie and will certainly get better. However, it's not even a competition between him and Sowell for starting right tackle.

LaMarr Woodley

Created strong pressure on a play against the Chargers second string, but he was brought in to generate sacks against starting offenses. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I'm thinking Markus Golden could start over him at this point.

Alameda Ta'amu

Crazy to think he was splitting time with Dan Williams last year, because last night wasn't very good. He was easily moved off the goal line and his initial push was bad. If your thing is run stopping you don't stop the run that isn't a good omen.

Logan Thomas

After two weeks of Sims being consistent, Thomas has to be feeling heat. He continued his string of inaccurate throwing and while some wasn't all on him as Jess pointed out in What We Learned, the team isn't likely to keep four quarterbacks when one is clearly worse than the others.