Grading The Cardinals Draft
It’s that time of year again. The picks have all been made, Chris Berman has been put back in mothballs until the home run derby in July, Mel Kiper is huddled up in the fetal position lamenting that it’s time to pack up his “big board” (until next week when ESPN looks to fill time with their Sportscenter Special: Preparing For The 2009 NFL Draft) and everyone and their mother is issuing grades on how NFL teams did in their drafts.
But instead of looking at every site we thought we’d give you the Arizona Cardinals 2008 Overall Draft Grade. We have scoured the internet (for all of 15 minutes) to provide you with grades from every site and will take those plus our own grade and give you the aggregate grade for your Arizona Cardinals:
NFL.com:Impressive (No grade but we equate that to a A): Loved the picks of, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, the value pick of Calais Campbell, Early Doucet and Tim Hightower.
SI.com: No grade but Peter King listed them on the “5 teams he liked” so that has to be worth at least an A- right?
Voiceofthecardinals.com: B+, Filled needs at CB, DE, OL, RB and WR over two days, what more could you ask for?
USAtoday.com: B+, Did everything they could to help themselves.
Yahoo.com: B, Major knock: Ducet not a speedster, no impact running back (PS Yahoo, the Cards changed their logo two years ago)
ESPN.com: B-, Major knock: no immediate impact running back drafted
Our Take: C+, The Cards neglected to find Edgerine James’ replacement in the first three rounds when runningback talent was still available. While Hightower has the chance to be an impact player down the road he in all likelihood will not provide much impact this season. Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie was a great pick in the first round as he was rated by many as the best CB in the draft. value Calais Campbell in the second round was based purely on potential and not on what he showed last season. Early Doucet is a big posession reciever, ala Anquan Boldin, but he lacks the breakout speed that the Cardinals have looked for out of their 3rd WR spot. Overall it was a good draft but lacked the WOW factor that was needed after a quiet offseason thus far.
Sportingnews.com: (they’re still around?) C-, waited too long to draft running back should have used the first round pick to do so.
Overall: B
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Posted by Greg Esposito
Co-founder of AzSportsHub.com. Greg provides the sometimes serious, sometimes sarcastic and always interesting takes on Arizona sports (at least we hope). Whether it’s on In The Zona with Matt or in his column Greg reports, rants and raves about whatever is in the news for Arizona Sports.
http://www.azsportshub.com/author/espo
(2 votes, avg: 5 out of 5)
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