The ten most important players on the Arizona Cardinals

In the offseason, one of the biggest ways to draw traffic to a website is to put out an arbitrary list that has no correct answer but can push a debate.

That is not the only reason SI asked their staff of Jacob Feldman, Emily Kaplan, Jonathan Jones, Eric Single and Jenny Vrentas to answer questions on the NFC West’s most important non-quarterbacks.

The top three for the Arizona Cardinals are actually not surprising as David Johnson had 47 points, Tyrann Mathieu finished with 46 points and Patrick Peterson finished with 39 points.

Chandler Jones finishing in fourth with 30 points, ahead of Larry Fitzgerald is a bit unexpected, at least to me.

Although Jones’ impact was not found in the win column, he helped turne the Arizona Cardinals into one of the best pass rushing teams in the NFL.

Jared Veldheer finished sixth with only 18 points, Deone Bucannon seventh with 17 points and maybe the most surprising is D.J. Humphries at eighth as he is making the move to left tackle, and if he flames out, it is a doublely bad blow, something I don’t see happening, but something we can talk about more later.

John Brown was ninth and Robert Nkemdiche tenth.

One writer was asked to defend their vote, for the Cardinals it was Eric Single:

This may look like a legacy vote, but the Cardinals made it clear last year that Fitzgerald will be an integral part of their offense as long as he is able to play. He’s just as valuable in the slot as he once was outside.

What do you think?

Some other names receiving votes:

Brandon Williams (four points), Corey Peters (three), Jermaine Gresham (three), Antoine Bethea (three), Haasan Reddick (two), Andre Ellington (one)