NFL teams
Josh Weinfuss, ESPN Staff Writer 6y

30 years after Arizona move, Cardinals still seek franchise QB

TEMPE, Ariz. – It’s the one position that’s eluded the Arizona Cardinals for, at least, the last 30 years.

Since the franchise moved to Arizona in 1988, they’ve drafted franchise players at almost every significant skill position but quarterback. They picked defensive back Aeneas Williams in 1991; receiver Larry Fitzgerald in 2004, the same season they found longtime defensive tackle Darnell Dockett; cornerback Patrick Peterson in 2011; and running back David Johnson in 2015.

They’ve tried their hand at drafting a quarterback -- but to little success. Since 1988, Arizona has drafted 13 quarterbacks: Tom Tupa, Timm Rosenbach, Jeff Bridewell, Tony Sacca, Stoney Case, Jake Plummer, Chris Greisen, Josh McCown, John Navarre, Matt Leinart, John Skelton, Ryan Lindley and Logan Thomas.

Aside from Plummer, who started 82 games in six years, none started more than 22 games – and none of the ones they drafted who started for Arizona had a winning record.

So, why haven’t the Cardinals been able to find a long-term solution at quarterback?

Former general manager Rod Graves, who was with the team from 1997 to 2012 and was responsible for drafting seven of those quarterbacks, said it wasn’t because of the effort.

“It certainly hasn’t been for lack of focus and administrative ability or scouting ability or anything along those lines,” Graves said. “I’ve always believed getting the right quarterback, often times, is a matter of being in the right place and in the right moment. And that, like a lot of other teams, has been a challenge. It was a challenge certainly when I was there.”

Arizona could’ve had a long-term solution in the early 2000s but they let Plummer, whom they took in the second round in 1997, walk in free agency after six seasons.

“There was no discussion at all of me staying there,” said Plummer, who recently co-founded Ready List Pro, a digital playbook that helps players at all levels learn football plays. “They didn’t even try. I probably would’ve if they would’ve not just paid me money. I wasn’t looking for that, but if they would’ve made the commitment I was looking for to make a championship team and really compete seriously to be a championship-caliber team … I don’t know. … It’s not easy to find franchise quarterbacks either.

“Look at the 32 teams, how many have that guy? There’s only a handful that have a guy that’s been there for a long, long time, and I was willing to stay there.”

Then the Cardinals thought they found their quarterback savior in 2006 when they drafted Leinart 10th overall. That didn’t pan out. He started 17 games, going 7-10, and was replaced by veteran Kurt Warner, who was signed as a free agent.

Warner was one of two veterans the team didn’t draft who helped the Cardinals to their most successful runs over the last decade. The other was Carson Palmer, whom they traded for in 2013.

But Graves thinks finding a quarterback is more a product of good fortune than anything.

“A great deal of it is luck in our business,” Graves said. “And, unfortunately, sometimes to be in a position to get those top quarterbacks, it takes having a poor season beforehand. So, when you’re lucky enough – if you call it luck, because obviously you’ve had to have gone through pain to be in that position – if you’re in that position, sometimes it’s a no-brainer when you’re picking there in a spot where there’s two and three top quarterbacks and you have a choice [of] one of them. It’s easy to combine those type of situations and look like a genius.”

This could be the year the Cardinals reverse their fortune.

The 2018 quarterback class has, at minimum, four to seven first-round picks in it, depending on whom you ask and how the board falls. Cardinals general manager Steve Keim said it’s no secret Arizona needs to pick one. He believes “there are some good quarterbacks that are coming out this year across the board but, in hindsight, you really don’t know how they’re going to pan out.”

So the question becomes: Will the Cardinals draft one?

“I think the biggest issue comes with the supply and demand at the position,” Keim said. “Where is the franchise quarterback going to be available? If you’re willing to trade, what’s the compensation for it? So, at the end of the day, again, it’s no secret, but are you willing to put the franchise in a position to be set back for years if you’re not right? It can be crippling for us if we traded the next couple drafts to go get a player that’s never taken a snap and doesn’t have success.

“There’s a lot of moving parts to it, but at the end of the day we’ve got to do the best thing for the organization. The last time around, we traded basically ‘a ham sandwich’ [for Palmer], as one writer said, and it worked out pretty good.”

Graves has faith that Keim can make the “right choice” at quarterback. But Graves kept reiterating that the Cardinals need to be in the right place to pick the right quarterback, one who shares the same traits as Warner and Jim McMahon, who was the Chicago Bears' QB in the early years of Graves’ tenure as their director of player personnel: a love for the game, great leadership ability and a high football IQ. Teams often pick quarterbacks high in the draft and those players don’t find the same success as their peers.

Another key is to have patience, Plummer said. But, he added, that’s dwindling among teams these days.

“Some guys hit their ceiling and that’s just what they have, and you should be OK with that and build a team around that because they’re you're leader. “I think there’s a little bit of impatience there to find that guy,” Plummer said. “You see it all the time. It just happens. Guys are excepted to come in right away because they’re being paid quite a bit and [they] perform immediately. It’s a hard thing to thing to do.”

Keim, who’s been in the franchise’s personnel department since 1999, has seen the swings – and the misses – firsthand. Since he’s sat in the general manager’s seat since 2013, Keim has picked just one quarterback: Logan Thomas in the fourth round in 2014.

And that’s something Keim thinks about.

“Constantly,” he said. “I think about the things that I’ve done wrong more so than about the things that have gone well. To me, when you’re a competitor, that’s how you grow and get better in this business is to be critical of yourself.”

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