For most of the off season, the talk will be about the quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals.
Will they acquire a veteran starter, ala Alex Smith, will they trade up to get a young quarterback, will they sit back and let one of the supposed seven quarterbacks they like fall to them?
All of this is to say, the reports and posturing of who the Arizona Cardinals will bring in at quarterback is pretty interesting, and likely won’t stop until March or April.
ESPN had a piece locked and loaded for when the Buffalo Bills were eliminated from the 2018 NFL Playoffs.
It happened in the first weekend, so it stung a little more for Bills fans, but they are predicting that the Bills move on from quarterback Tyrod Taylor. Which begged the question, where does Tyrod end up in 2018?
The Cardinals were involved in two ways:
Mike Clay: Broncos. Alex Smith to the Cardinals makes too much sense and I believe the Jaguars will add a rookie to compete with Bortles, which opens the door for a Taylor/first-round rookie competition in Denver. The window is closing on the Demaryius Thomas/Emmanuel Sanders duo and the Broncos’ defense is still one of the league’s best.
So Mike Clay takes the Cardinals in the Alex Smith sweepstakes, delivering Taylor to the Broncos.
It makes sense, we saw the Cardinals linked by Ian Rapoport, based on their interest in Smith five years ago and he is a more than competent quarterback who will keep the Cardinals competitive in 2018 and maybe even 2019. If the team trades for Smith, they don’t even have to be on the clock in the 2018 draft to get a quarterback, although you would still like to see them pull the trigger.
Meanwhile, Field Yates believes that the Cardinals are the best option for Tyrod:
Yates: Arizona Cardinals. Few teams have had the recent success of the Cardinals in acquiring veteran players and helping them to breathe second life into a career. Carson Palmer, Dwight Freeney and Tramon Williams are notable examples. There are many question marks this offseason in Arizona -- starting with who will replace Bruce Arians -- but Taylor would be a reasonable addition given that Arizona is far enough down the draft order (No. 15) where finding a top quarterback prospect is no sure thing.
Yates makes a great case for it and his assessment of the likelihood of the Cardinals landing a quarterback at 15 is spot on.
Would they be willing to trade up? They haven’t been in round one, when it is usually known that a future first round pick is the cost to make a move.
Now, with Smith or Tyrod, they have a window to find the quarterback... Of course, is that what the new coach would want?
We’ll talk about that shortly.