Harry
ASFN Consultant and Senior Writer
If you look at this year’s roster I believe you can only conclude there are 2 possibilities. Either this roster is the result of incompetent player selection or the Cards are tanking.
Consider first the offensive line I’ve dubbed the Eggshell Line. I’ll grant losing Shipley was a bad break. The rest was deliberate. Why Eggshell? Here’s the number of starts the other 4 starting linemen were healthy enough to make last year; Smith 8, Pugh 8, Iupati 1 and Humphries 5.
How about Tight Ends? Gresham is returning from injury and seems to be a shadow of his former self. Seals-Jones has 12 career catches. Holmes has none.
Wide Receivers were mostly allowed to leave. Fitz was brought back, but is seldom targeted. Nelson had trouble with drops last year and seldom plays. Williams made 3 catches last season. The others are rookies.
Running backs are a similar story. Logan missed the entire year with an injury. Johnson is returning from injury. Edmonds is a rookie. They did sign a fullback who rarely plays.
They signed 2 QBs. Bradford has an injury history which would have led me to think this called for a quality O-Line unless you wanted him to go out. Glennon was a perennial ne’er do well.
The place kicker was marginal at best last year.
For offensive coordinator they chose a guy fired mid-year last season for failure to get the job done after losing 6 straight. Ironically he was coaching Denver.
I’m not going to waste the time running through the entire defense. Suffice to say if you’re going to switch from a reasonably successful 3-4 defense to a 4-3 zone-focused defense you should make sure your personnel fit that scheme.
If all these personnel decisions don’t lead to a new GM, you have your answer about tanking.
Consider first the offensive line I’ve dubbed the Eggshell Line. I’ll grant losing Shipley was a bad break. The rest was deliberate. Why Eggshell? Here’s the number of starts the other 4 starting linemen were healthy enough to make last year; Smith 8, Pugh 8, Iupati 1 and Humphries 5.
How about Tight Ends? Gresham is returning from injury and seems to be a shadow of his former self. Seals-Jones has 12 career catches. Holmes has none.
Wide Receivers were mostly allowed to leave. Fitz was brought back, but is seldom targeted. Nelson had trouble with drops last year and seldom plays. Williams made 3 catches last season. The others are rookies.
Running backs are a similar story. Logan missed the entire year with an injury. Johnson is returning from injury. Edmonds is a rookie. They did sign a fullback who rarely plays.
They signed 2 QBs. Bradford has an injury history which would have led me to think this called for a quality O-Line unless you wanted him to go out. Glennon was a perennial ne’er do well.
The place kicker was marginal at best last year.
For offensive coordinator they chose a guy fired mid-year last season for failure to get the job done after losing 6 straight. Ironically he was coaching Denver.
I’m not going to waste the time running through the entire defense. Suffice to say if you’re going to switch from a reasonably successful 3-4 defense to a 4-3 zone-focused defense you should make sure your personnel fit that scheme.
If all these personnel decisions don’t lead to a new GM, you have your answer about tanking.