Your choice: spend the rest of the week decoding the analysis of retired football players and super-prophets in lead up to championship weekend, or read the following spoiler.
Gurus will reveal that the No. 1 key to both games on Sunday will be the play of the quarterbacks. Improbably, consensus will once again be reached.
The quarterback position is important in the game of American football. One can’t teach savvy swagger, a ‘gimme job now’ attitude.
But there is more.
Cardinal fans, meaning those who were around before 2009 and didn’t accidently slip on Emmitt Smith jerseys before heading to Sun Devil Stadium, get this: your team had a chance to select three of the four starting quarterbacks in the upcoming championship weekend. The only exception is Jets starter Mark Sanchez, but he’s never played like one anyway.
In 2006, the Cardinals selected laser-arm, laser-focused Matt Leinart over that loser from Vanderbilt.
(Insert cheap shot about Cutler’s punch-face and stupid, behind-the-scenes charity work.)
Sorry folks, Cutler is good, tough and one of three most talented quarterbacks in football.
He survived a 16-game season behind a patchwork offensive line to lead his team to big wins all year. He has played five seasons in four different offenses. He will be considered an elite quarterback by February.
In 2005, the Cardinals selected cornerback Antrel Rolle with the eighth pick and watched as Aaron Rodgers slipped to the back-end of the first round. Sure, the Cardinals signed Kurt Warner a month before, but he was largely unheralded after sputtering with the Giants.
The Cardinals also passed on Kyle Orton in the fourth round. Ironically, Orton is likely a primary trade target of the Cards once the new collective bargaining agreement is confirmed (fingers crossed on both counts).
God has an Aaron Rodgers complex, to be perfectly straightforward.
In 2004, the Cardinals selected arguably the greatest player in franchise history, Larry Fitzgerald, with the third pick. Philip Rivers went fourth and Ben Roethlisberger went 11th.
As Cardinal fans are sure to find out soon, the NFL is not a chicken or egg conundrum — good quarterbacks win.
Great receivers don’t lead to victories without good quarterbacks. Great receivers leave to play for good quarterbacks. Good quarterbacks don’t leave for great receivers, they make them.
The Cardinals had Josh McCown and Jeff Blake at quarterback the year they picked ‘Fitz, and also passed on Matt Schaub in the third round.
Ok, so they missed on a couple quarterbacks when it appeared there was a need at the position. It happens to all teams, picking talent over need. Sometimes the evaluations are wrong.
Most draft boards look silly in hindsight, right?
Just wait.
In 2008, the Cardinals selected a double last name cornerback with the 16th pick in the first round when anything but average Joe Flacco went 18th.
Apparently Warner would never leave the desert.
In 2007, the Cardinals passed up the chance to draft Kevin Kolb in the second round by opting for defensive tackle Alan Branch.
Lionheart was grooming, er, being groomed.
In 2002, post-Plummer, pre-Warner and Leinart, the Cardinals selected Josh McCown late in the third round when David Garrard went early in the fourth round.
Oops.
(Flashback to the Jake Plummer years.)
The Harmony in the Valley pick = 30 wins, 52 losses, 90 touchdowns, 114 interceptions and one fluke playoff appearance that prolonged delusions about the home-town hero for another five years.
Plummer became a good quarterback under one of the great offensive coaches in league history who built an offense around the Snake’s physical ability. But Plummer was a well-below average quarterback in Arizona by almost every statistical measure.
From 1997 to 2001, the Cardinals were two picks away from Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and Michael Vick; chose Thomas Jones over Chad Pennington, David Boston over Daunte Culpepper; and passed on Mark Bulger, Aaron Brooks, and Tom Brady a combined 15 times.
Yes, a developing theme, as the gurus say.
In 1995, during the glorious Dave Krieg era, the Cardinals passed on Kordell Stewart in the second round. That’s fiddlesticks compared to picking Mike Jones at No. 32 when Brett Favre went No. 33 in 1991.
Lay off though, will ya? That was during the unparalleled reign of Tom Tupa (yes, Tupa, the one-time all-pro punter, was drafted as a quarterback by the Cardinals, threw for over 2000 yards in 1991, and spent his last nine years coffin-kicking.)
They also passed on Mark Brunell, Gus Ferotte, Rodney Peete and Chris Chandler a combined 18 rounds and were two picks away from Drew Bledsoe.
Speaking of a crapshoot, isn’t criticizing any team’s drafts as easy and ridiculous as hunting caged pigeons?
It’s possible to say the Cardinals draft history has turned them into helpless winged rats.
Since the Cardinals moved to Phoenix in 1988, the Bidwills have overseen front-offices that have selected a grand total of … wait for it … one quarterback in the first round.
That’s 22 seasons and one first round quarterback pick (Leinart).
Over that course of time (since 1988), only New Orleans and Miami have not picked a quarterback in the first round.
Most NFL teams during that time span have chosen at least two quarterbacks in the first round, and that includes all of the new teams created in the 1990s and the many teams who had franchise, perennial pro-bowl quarterbacks over many seasons.
The Cardinals have had 14 leading passers in 22 seasons (Plummer led the team in seven seasons), some journeymen, and numerous mid-to-late round experimental and ultimately failed projects.
Who is the only quarterback to have made the Pro-Bowl in Phoenix? Kurt Warner in 2008.
It could easily be argued that since the Cardinals moved to the Valley, they’ve had the least amount of production from the quarterback position in the entire league. But more importantly, they’ve done almost nothing to address the inadequate talent year in and year out.
But aren’t most first round picks big-risk busts not worth the investment?
Since 1988, exactly 50 percent of all playoff teams were led by a first-round pick (132 of 264). Of the 88 teams that have made the conference championship in the last 22 years, 60 percent have been led by a first round quarterback (53).
The other 50 percent contained the likes of non-first round picks who consistently made the playoffs, guys like Brett Favre and Drew Brees (early seconds), Joe Montana (third), Tom Brady (sixth), Warren Moon, Boomer Esiason, Rich Gannon, Trent Green, Mark Rypien, Jeff Garcia, Brad Johnson and yes, Kurt Warner.
Sure, it’s possible to find a mid-to-late round gem, but the corollary is overwhelmingly clear: First round quarterbacks make the league go. They aren’t always hall-of-famers like John Elway, Troy Aikman, Dan Marino, Jim Kelly and Steve Young, but they are often the consistent signal-callers who have the necessary skills and acuity to run an efficient, controlled attack.
Guys like Jim Harbaugh, Phil Simms, Steve McNair, Donovan McNabb, Kerry Collins, Drew Bledsoe and Eli Manning.
It is easy to see that the Cardinals have been beyond abysmal in their selection of quarterbacks in the draft, and the list of players they’ve bypassed is beyond belief, but they’ve also never attempted to trade up or down to get ‘their guy,’ as many teams have successfully done over the years.
Here is my theory, which is simple, cliché for Valley residents and not very-well supported: the Cardinals have not selected quarterbacks in the first round because the penny-pinching Bidwills don’t want to get locked into the bigger bonus, longer term contracts that are typically given out to quarterbacks.
Quarterbacks take the most time to develop and have longer careers than any other position outside of kickers, punters and long-snappers.
They make the most money, they often demand longer deals, and are far riskier for organizations that seek to maximize profits with the least amount of investment.
With whom besides the birds shall I share this lonely view?
Reach the reporter at nick.ruland@asu.edu.
