Originally posted by Cardinals.Ken
John Gambadoro
Special for azcentral.com
Apr. 28, 2003
The safe bet would have been to stay at No. 6 and draft the best available defensive player regardless of position for a team that needs all the help it can get on defense. But the Arizona Cardinals decided to gamble. Needing help at so many positions on the field they tried to parlay the pick into something special. So they rolled the dice. And lost.
It happens. Sometimes when you gamble you lose and the Cardinals lost. I don't fault them for trying. They had the team's best interests at heart and weren't enamored with Terrell Suggs, who was not on the Cardinals' list of the top 10 rated players in the draft. They truly felt that they would get one of the top four defensive ends at No. 17. They just got beat to the punch and were forced to take Wake Forest's Calvin Pace at No. 18 based on need. Better luck next time. I know that's not easy to say for a 5-11 football team that really couldn't afford to blow this draft, but it's reality. The Arizona Cardinals had a plan but somewhere in the middle of the first-round of that draft, the plan backfired.
It happened when the Philadelphia Eagles called the Cardinals' bluff. Desperate for a defensive end to replace Hugh Douglas the Eagles seized the moment by jumping ahead of Arizona and acquiring the No. 15 pick in a trade with the San Diego Chargers. That move blindsided Arizona. They never expected someone moving ahead of them and when they got wind that not only Philadelphia, but also the New York Giants were attempting to move up, they started working the phones. The Cardinals couldn't afford to lose University of Miami's Jerome McDougle so they were prepared to trade with San Diego and move up two spots to derail the charging Eagles. The only problem was that by the time Vice President Rod Graves contacted San Diego, the deal with the Eagles had been completed. Ouch. It hurt bad and probably will for a long time. The Cardinals had their heart set on McDougle. They moved out of No. 6 because the three players they coveted, Dewayne Robertson, Charles Rogers and Andre Johnson. were all gone.
With hindsight being 20/20, the Cardinals would surely rather have had Suggs and either wide receiver Taylor Jacobs of Florida, who was still available at No. 37, or Penn State's Bryant Johnson, who very well may have lasted through the first six picks of the second round over the three players the Cardinals got in the deal. There was not a wide receiver taken between Houston's pick of Andre Johnson third overall and the No. 37 pick so you would be safe to assume that Bryant Johnson would have been there for the Cardinals at 37. But they made their bed and now must lie in it. What the Cardinals can be criticized for is caving in to the pressure of New Orleans. A straight up exchange of No. 6 for picks Nos. 17 and 18 would have been a good deal for Arizona. But New Orleans clearly got the better of the deal when it exchanged second-round picks with Arizona, moving up 17 spots in the process, and then got the Cardinals to throw in a fourth-round pick. Those moves show you just how desperate Arizona was to move out of the sixth spot. The Cardinals tried to get New Orleans to take either running back Thomas Jones or cornerback Michael Stone instead of the fourth-rounder, but New Orleans didn't want Arizona's garbage.
By making the trade the Cardinals will save a few million dollars because the two first-round picks combined will not equal what the No. 6 pick gets in signing bonus, which should be around $10 million. But I don't think this trade was about the money or the ability to sign the player.
Former Cowboys Coach Jimmy Johnson came up with a rating system for draft picks and based on that system New Orleans needed more than just the No. 6 pick for its two first-rounders. What the Cardinals should have done was tell New Orleans that they don't base trades on Jimmy Johnson's theories and systems. Because what burned Arizona the most was dropping 17 spots in the second round. That forced them to take Bryant Johnson and Pace based on need, with the belief that equal value would not have been available at pick No. 54. The Cardinals rarely cave in on dealing with their draft picks - see Wendell Bryant and most other former first rounders. So why cave in with New Orleans. The Saints wanted to move up as badly as the Cardinals wanted to move down. And therein lies the Cardinals' mistake. Because without the 37th pick they were forced to take a player they didn't want at No. 18.
The Cardinals had Nebraska's Chris Kelsay, who went No. 48 overall to Buffalo, rated equal with Pace, but the organization didn't want to draft another player they consider similar to Kyle Vanden Bosch or Fred Wakefield. They had an opportunity to trade the No. 18 pick to Miami for the Dolphins' second-round pick, No. 49 overall, linebacker Derrick Rodgers and a first-round pick next year and should have jumped at that instead of reaching for a third-round selection in the first round.
Now if Suggs ends up being a special player, the Cardinals will be criticized to no end. Because they had him and the fans wanted him. Graves should have his fingers crossed that Suggs is a bust, because if the ex-ASU star ends up with 10 or more sacks next year and Pace gets five or fewer, this deal is going to look awfully bad.
So while most experts are considering the Cardinals one of the losers in the draft, truly only time will tell. It does look like the Cardinals rebounded nicely from the third round on to bring in good football players from quality programs. But it is also apparent that for the second straight year the Cardinals will not come out of a draft with an impact player. And that hurts.
