If It Walks Like a Duck

Harry

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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.
 

Buckybird

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I just can’t see the players tanking, especially in just 7 weeks to start a season.

Inept coaching, poor moves by the GM & almost zero adjustments by coaches are leading to the worst Cardinals team of my 43 year fandom.

It’s time...fire everyone including Keim. I’ve never witnessed a NFL team quit on their coach 7 games into his career. NEVER. That’s telling me a total overhaul is needed.
 

BW52

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HC in way over his head.Getting rid of players from the previous coach (they were not world beaters but they helped the team compete last season) and bringing in Carolina castoffs/PS guys and switching schemes before getting the proper players,lousy coaching/wrong playersplaying wrong positions etc;Nightmare season.Bradford was a massive miss.Keeping Dawson instead of a young kicker was a miss.Just too many poor personel choices.I just hope Josh Rosen doesn`t get like Carr the former Houston top pick 10-12 years back who got crunched so many times he never recovered to fulfill his hoped for career.
 

Paso Fino

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It was interesting to see the times the camera showed Bidwill and Keim sitting together. Keim looked very uncomfortable as he should have. There was no interaction between them. Bidwill had an ear piece. I wonder what he was listening to. Hopefully, it was music and not the game.
 

Dayman

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I blame Keim for the vast majority of what is happening.

There was an article this week about how Wilks gained too much power prematurely while Keim was suspended. That suspension obviously occured during the talent evaluation period, too, which couldn't have helped some of these personnel decisions. And he is the one who ultimately approved of hiring this seriously antiquated and overwhelmed coaching staff.

Look, Keim has made some great moves. The trade for Chandler Jones might be the best in franchise history. Trading for Carson was brilliant. David Johnson in the third was a steal. Badger in the third was a win. But his negatives are starting to seriously outweigh his positives in terms of a full resume.

I know Keim did his time for the DUI already, but when you are that much of a distraction during the offseason AND the product you put on the field is pretty much trash from top to bottom, you don't deserve to keep your job. It looks more and more like Arians made Keim look way better than he actually is.
 

Russ Smith

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I've been trying to explain to UCLA fans on a UCLA board what's going on because they're not Cards fans they are just following Rosen. They're all saying how can the offense be this bad, what's with the OL etc. When you point out to them 3 of the 5 starters are out, and as Harry said in 2 cases they had a recent history of injury, especially Iupati, relying on them to be healthy this year was nuts. Then you have Humphries coming off injury, Smiths' history of weight issues etc.

It really is stunning, on the surface this team got BACK it's starting LT and star RB, and the offense has gotten dramatically worse. yes we lost Palmer but he didn't play down the stretch last year either, we were 5-4 without Palmer last year, Arians won 5 games with Stanton and Gabbert at QB.

So yeah a rookie is going to struggle but there's no way Bradford should have looked as bad as he did I just think we're seeing a group that has no belief in the offense they're running, with a terrible and now injury decimated OL. ESPN is speculating like everyone else McCoy will be fired tomorrow, he better be. You have a long week before SF and then a bye, so extra days for a new OC to take over and then after 1 game to have a bye week for the new OC.

What a fuster cluck I can't believe how quickly this team fell apart after Arians left.
 

AZCrazy

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Terry Porter this bunch and don't let it get gangrenous.
A virtual full rebuild in the NFL can take just two seasons, but a stenchy locker room can linger for years. Don't let it get ingrained.
 
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Harry

Harry

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Who are they tanking for?

At the time this decision was made it wasn’t clear the QBs would under perform this poorly, so trading down looked more attractive. Still it would provide extra draft picks and facilitate a rebuild.

For those of you thinking I’m nuts, always a possibility, how do you explain no veteran, quality receivers, running backs or tight ends signed. They were available and the Cards left money in the bank. They signed a passing QB not a scrambler able to create yards himself, yet got him virtually no targets. I’ll grant few OLs were available but the rest of the offense was ignored.
 

ReasonableMan

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At the time this decision was made it wasn’t clear the QBs would under perform this poorly, so trading down looked more attractive. Still it would provide extra draft picks and facilitate a rebuild.

For those of you thinking I’m nuts, always a possibility, how do you explain no veteran, quality receivers, running backs or tight ends signed. They were available and the Cards left money in the bank. They signed a passing QB not a scrambler able to create yards himself, yet got him virtually no targets. I’ll grant few OLs were available but the rest of the offense was ignored.
I think they’ve simply lost control. Your post implies a grand scheme
 

b8rtm8nn

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At the time this decision was made it wasn’t clear the QBs would under perform this poorly, so trading down looked more attractive. Still it would provide extra draft picks and facilitate a rebuild.

For those of you thinking I’m nuts, always a possibility, how do you explain no veteran, quality receivers, running backs or tight ends signed. They were available and the Cards left money in the bank. They signed a passing QB not a scrambler able to create yards himself, yet got him virtually no targets. I’ll grant few OLs were available but the rest of the offense was ignored.

Won't say your nuts, but I believe that Keim thought Wilks had a much better handle on what roster he was inheriting and would be willing to start the roster churn this year, if Wilks asked for it.

So, if Wilks can't identify talent during practices, and is telling Keim that the roster is pretty solid - why would Keim churn? We 'learned' that Buc/Riddick can't play LB in a 4-3 after two games - that's on Wilks. We 'learned' that we didn't have enough meat for our DTs to play the 4-3 design, that's on Wilks.

Keim isn't faultless, I think he believed this would be a year in transition on defense as McCoy and Bradford would have kept the offense respectful - and he was completely wrong there as well
 

CardNots

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I vote tanking... saying this helps my mind deal with what i’m seeing. The brutal beat down should accelerate the upcoming purge.
 

AZCB34

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At the time this decision was made it wasn’t clear the QBs would under perform this poorly, so trading down looked more attractive. Still it would provide extra draft picks and facilitate a rebuild.

For those of you thinking I’m nuts, always a possibility, how do you explain no veteran, quality receivers, running backs or tight ends signed. They were available and the Cards left money in the bank. They signed a passing QB not a scrambler able to create yards himself, yet got him virtually no targets. I’ll grant few OLs were available but the rest of the offense was ignored.

They expected Bradford to elevate the "talent" around him. Keim bought in that there was more talent there and all he needed to do was make sure to upgrade from Gabbert and Stanton and it would build off the 8-8. I simply cannot buy some master plan of tanking the season was in place.
 

NJCardFan

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At the time this decision was made it wasn’t clear the QBs would under perform this poorly, so trading down looked more attractive. Still it would provide extra draft picks and facilitate a rebuild.

For those of you thinking I’m nuts, always a possibility, how do you explain no veteran, quality receivers, running backs or tight ends signed. They were available and the Cards left money in the bank. They signed a passing QB not a scrambler able to create yards himself, yet got him virtually no targets. I’ll grant few OLs were available but the rest of the offense was ignored.
They did a comparison of the QB's drafted and none are really lighting it up although Jackson hasn't been given the chance yet. Darnold has shown flashes as has Mayfield but the others are just plugging along. Rosen, in his defense, is the lipstick on a pig right now.
 
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Harry

Harry

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They expected Bradford to elevate the "talent" around him. Keim bought in that there was more talent there and all he needed to do was make sure to upgrade from Gabbert and Stanton and it would build off the 8-8. I simply cannot buy some master plan of tanking the season was in place.

Without a line and with limited mobility? Plus I’m still waiting to hear why no WRs, RBs or TEs. Who was he going to elevate, Fitz?
 

conraddobler

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It certainly would explain some things and maybe it's gotten too far out of hand I mean if they have never done this chances are they're newbies at it which would explain a lot.

Maybe over doing it a tad is being generous.

Like a fighter tanking a fight it has to be somewhat respectable or it just starts to look stupid.

I'd say they may have gone a wee bit too far and overdone it if that was their aim cause this is looking more grim by the second.
 

Arz101

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At the time this decision was made it wasn’t clear the QBs would under perform this poorly, so trading down looked more attractive. Still it would provide extra draft picks and facilitate a rebuild.

For those of you thinking I’m nuts, always a possibility, how do you explain no veteran, quality receivers, running backs or tight ends signed. They were available and the Cards left money in the bank. They signed a passing QB not a scrambler able to create yards himself, yet got him virtually no targets. I’ll grant few OLs were available but the rest of the offense was ignored.

Harry, you are over crediting the collective intelligence of this franchise. I am sorry to say they are not that smart.
 
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