MVN - Most Valuable Network

Final thoughts on the Cardinals 2008 draft.

As I review the two days of action in the 2008 NFL draft, as well as the pick up’s in free agency immediately after the draft, it is obvious there has been a major change in philosophy in the Cardinals draft and how they approach it. Last year gave a minor indication of the change, but the new staff hadn’t evaluated their players and gone a full season and the situation with the O-Line was so bad that they had to give it top priority just to make the team competitive.

This year saw them take the best rated player on their board at the position of maximum need or improvement for the team. Thats what solid, competitive teams do every year and it’s how you get consistently better from season to season. All the people grumbling about not landing a feature running back, they need to check the roster and realize we have one of the NFL’s all time rushing leaders in our backfield and he’s a highly productive and durable guy. The NEED for a running back wasn’t extreme and the team wisely focused elsewhere.

The themes were best player at position of need, build the lines on both sides of the ball but primarily the front seven on defense, and address areas where a key injury would dramatically impact the team.

The selection of Cromartie after all of the top quality DE’s and OT’s were gone made his selection a no brainer. He’s got huge upside potential and dramatically improves the secondary whether he starts or not. Just moving Ralph Brown down to 4th corner instead of third makes the depth better as that’s about what Ralph is. Solid guy, works hard but he needs to be your 4th guy, not your third if you want to be a championship team. If the Cardinals had another run of injuries at corner their lack of depth would have just killed them.

The selection of Calais Campbell was another great value pick. You just can’t find guys his size and with major college production outside of the first round usually. Just as they grabbed Alan Branch last year to shore up depth at NT, Campbell gives them a true 3-4 DE who can stuff the run and provide inside push on passing downs, thus making the edge guys even better. We had Joe Tafoya as our back up DE last year and despite his being a great guy and hard worker, how did that work out the last 4 games? Our pass rush vanished and Campbell gives us a serious back up.

The Early Doucet pick was again top value at an area everyone tends to over look. The Cardinals have seen Fitzgerald and Boldin miss serious time due to injury in each of the last three seasons. Nothing major but a few games here and there. The prospect of having Steve Breaston or Jamaica Rector line up as your third guy or move out to the number 2 spot would have been awful. Doucet is a pure football player who plays way faster then he times, who blocks and who makes big catches. What more could you want in a pick like this? The guy should have been a high second round selection and is one of the most pro ready guys coming out of college this year. Expect him to make a big impact early and give us top quality depth.

Kenny Iwebema’s pick originally surprised me, but once I took a look at his bio and the notes from people who actually have seen this guy play indicates he has solid potential and again upgrades an area we are incredibly thin at. Rodney Bailey was our back up DE in this slot and this guy is potentially a solid upgrade with upside. Again, you have a rotation DE to give Dockett some rest and protection if he get’s injured. This team is serious about upgrading the D-Line.

Tim Hightower is another intriguing pick. All football player, high production, tough and plays with a chip on his shoulder. He isn’t an Edge replacement, he’s a Shipp replacement. That means he gives us a short yardage, third down guy and someone who gives Edge a rest and keeps him fresh. Shipp is a great Cardinal and has over come a ton to stay in the league but lets face it the last few years he hasn’t been very productive and the staff doesn’t want to invest any more time in him.

Chris Harrington from Texas A&M is another guy who is all football player, highly productive, high character who will be looked at to replace Bert Berry either this year or next. He’s probably too small to be a DE in this defense but as an edge OLB in their hybrid he would back up Travis LaBoy.

Brandon Keith addressed the huge hole at back up OT on the current roster. Oliver Ross is gone and they need to develop some OT’s who can compete and provide depth, or at the very least make the practice squad and learn. Both Keith and some of the undrafted guys have a shot to stick if they can catch Russ Grimm’s eye and work hard.

At the end of the day it became obvious this staff realized their front seven from last year was getting old, was injury prone and had limited upside and way too much salary. The additions of Haggans, Stewart, Laboy, Campbell, Iwebema and Harrington is a warming shot to the incumbents to not take their jobs for granted and that this defense is still a work in progress, but that they want to get younger, bigger and deeper. The old saying is defense win’s championships and this staff has made a major commitment to the defensive side of the ball to get them from 8-8 to 11-5 this year. The depth on the O-Line makes me nervous, but if they can develop one or two tackles to go with the guys they already have they will have put a good, low cost O-Line in place that has depth provided by low round picks and free agents.

Not a bad haul. I give it a B+.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 6:17 pm and is filed under Draft News, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.