Bruce Arians - “Arizona Was Going to Draft Deshaun Watson”

[CardsSunsDbacks]

Everyone would have cared, since those players were anything but surefire, and we were a team supposedly angling for a playoff berth or championship that year.

You're all not looking at this from the context of what the situation was in 2017, just mad because those guys are both difference makers now.

Barely any acknowledgement on the Paxton Lynch thing either. Keim is "proactive" to get him and we call him a fat drunk like in other threads. He moves up for Mahomes or Watson? Genius. What if he had moved up to get his guy with Ameer Abdullah instead of David Johnson? We'd be calling him a proactive idiot. And he moved up to get Rosen, who didn't work out, which we hate him for.

It's all revisionist history. I still think Keim sucks, but this isn't why.

We might have cared then, but we definitely wouldn't care now. Mahomes has a skill set that would likely flourish in essentially any environment and I suspect he would be close to the same player for us as he has been for the Chiefs.

 

[Solar7]

We might have cared then, but we definitely wouldn't care now. Mahomes has a skill set that would likely flourish in essentially any environment and I suspect he would be close to the same player for us as he has been for the Chiefs.

Woulda coulda shoulda, like was said on the last page. We sure would have cared if he traded up for Trubisky. Regardless, it doesn't matter, we never had a chance.

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

Woulda coulda shoulda, like was said on the last page. We sure would have cared if he traded up for Trubisky. Regardless, it doesn't matter, we never had a chance.

Of course. I am not one to live in the past and there is no way to know at the time that he would have become the player that he has.

 

[Cheesebeef]

With Wilks on the sideline, it really didn't matter what the roster looked like.

I can't imagine the amount of yoga you must do to pretzel yourself so many ways to defend a GM who's won ONE playoff game in SEVEN years, hasn't had a winning season in FOUR YEARS and has just delivered us two of the worst rosters I've ever seen in back to back years.

 

[blindseyed]

Bridgewater was a disaster for the team that gave up picks for him. When talking the draft, I don't talk about the future of the player that he didn't play for. If Kyler Murray leaves us in three years and wins seven championships with the Jaguars, but none for us, he will have been a bad pick for the Cardinals.

So Brees was a bad pick for the Chargers?

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

So who was in charge of building the roster for the disastrous 2018 offseason?

I guess whomever was keims daddy that year.

why do people keep making excuses for this guy? He sucks. That should be all that’s said.

 

[dscher]

Everyone would have cared, since those players were anything but surefire, and we were a team supposedly angling for a playoff berth or championship that year.

You're all not looking at this from the context of what the situation was in 2017, just mad because those guys are both difference makers now.

Barely any acknowledgement on the Paxton Lynch thing either. Keim is "proactive" to get him and we call him a fat drunk like in other threads. He moves up for Mahomes or Watson? Genius. What if he had moved up to get his guy with Ameer Abdullah instead of David Johnson? We'd be calling him a proactive idiot. And he moved up to get Rosen, who didn't work out, which we hate him for

It's all revisionist history. I still think Keim sucks, but this isn't why.

But he didn't do any of those things...hence the point I think you may be passing up here...that keim is a reactionary gm. That's what most are saying that you are disagreeing with.....and I would argue the Rosen trade up as pure desperation on the orgs part. So once again, reactionary. Jmo

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

How is it faulty reasoning? Again, it's like calling Brett Favre a great draft pick by the Falcons. He's a hall of fame player, but the Falcons got nothing from him. It's just like Drew Brees, too. He did not have a legendary career for the Chargers. Wasted pick.

I'm willing to shift my thing about Bridgewater to "iffy," but picks who don't produce for your team are meaningless picks. John Brown being a #1 receiver in Buffalo right now does not help the Arizona Cardinals.


See above.

Nope you’re wrong on all those. All those were great picks. The teams inability to recognize what they had or develop them was at fault. But the pucks themselves were excellent.

 

[PACardsFan]

I can't imagine the amount of yoga you must do to pretzel yourself so many ways to defend a GM who's won ONE playoff game in SEVEN years, hasn't had a winning season in FOUR YEARS and has just delivered us two of the worst rosters I've ever seen in back to back years.

In the history of the Cardinal franchise (100 years), they have won a sum total of 7 playoff games. When you factor in the overall ineptitude of this franchise, Keim's 56-52-2 record & 1 playoff win ranks him as one of the best GM's in Cardinal history. He's also the only Cardinal GM in history to be named Executive of the Year. Not once, but twice. There's no argument from me that the last 2 years have been unacceptable. And we'll find out whether MB gives him another year to turn this around. I think he will. Time will tell. I won't lose sleep one way or the other. For me, the only untouchable person in the entire organization is Kyler Murray.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Everyone would have cared, since those players were anything but surefire, and we were a team supposedly angling for a playoff berth or championship that year.

You're all not looking at this from the context of what the situation was in 2017, just mad because those guys are both difference makers now.

Barely any acknowledgement on the Paxton Lynch thing either. Keim is "proactive" to get him and we call him a fat drunk like in other threads. He moves up for Mahomes or Watson? Genius. What if he had moved up to get his guy with Ameer Abdullah instead of David Johnson? We'd be calling him a proactive idiot. And he moved up to get Rosen, who didn't work out, which we hate him for.

It's all revisionist history. I still think Keim sucks, but this isn't why.

Cheese and I were not in that group of idiots that thought we were gunning for the playoffs. We wanted a QB.

also, who the hell cares what the fans want? If he identified Watson or Mahomes and was aggressive and got them, that’s what you pay a GM to do, be smarter than us fan doofuses and keep his job. And if he identified Paxson and was aggressive he’d have been dumber than us doofuses and deserved to be fired.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

In the history of the Cardinal franchise (100 years), they have won a sum total of 7 playoff games. When you factor in the overall ineptitude of this franchise, Keim's 56-52-2 record & 1 playoff win ranks him as one of the best GM's in Cardinal history. He's also the only Cardinal GM in history to be named Executive of the Year. Not once, but twice. There's no argument from me that the last 2 years have been unacceptable. And we'll find out whether MB gives him another year to turn this around. I think he will. Time will tell. I won't lose sleep one way or the other. For me, the only untouchable person in the entire organization is Kyler Murray.

In the history of the Cardinal franchise (100 years), they have won a sum total of 7 playoff games. When you factor in the overall ineptitude of this franchise, Keim's 56-52-2 record & 1 playoff win ranks him as one of the best GM's in Cardinal history. He's also the only Cardinal GM in history to be named Executive of the Year. Not once, but twice. There's no argument from me that the last 2 years have been unacceptable. And we'll find out whether MB gives him another year to turn this around. I think he will. Time will tell. I won't lose sleep one way or the other. For me, the only untouchable person in the entire organization is Kyler Murray.

So you’re argument is he’s the best of the dip$hitz??? But that still makes him a dip$hit

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

We might have cared then, but we definitely wouldn't care now. Mahomes has a skill set that would likely flourish in essentially any environment and I suspect he would be close to the same player for us as he has been for the Chiefs.

Particularly if Arians has gotten him!

 

[kerouac9]

In the history of the Cardinal franchise (100 years), they have won a sum total of 7 playoff games. When you factor in the overall ineptitude of this franchise, Keim's 56-52-2 record & 1 playoff win ranks him as one of the best GM's in Cardinal history. He's also the only Cardinal GM in history to be named Executive of the Year. Not once, but twice. There's no argument from me that the last 2 years have been unacceptable. And we'll find out whether MB gives him another year to turn this around. I think he will. Time will tell. I won't lose sleep one way or the other. For me, the only untouchable person in the entire organization is Kyler Murray.

lol. A second-rate executive of the year award from PFT. What a joke.

also, didn’t Brice Arians basically earn those awards? How can you have it both ways — Arians get all the blame and Keim gets all the credit?

 

[PACardsFan]

So you’re argument is he’s the best of the dip$hitz??? But that still makes him a dip$hit

In our dysfunctional Cardinal history, that makes perfect sense. Do you really feel that comfortable that MB would even hire a better GM than Keim? I don't. AW would probably get the job & who really knows how that would play out. Keim did sit over 10-6, 11-5, and 13-3 seasons. No guarantee he ever gets back to that, but it did actually happen. With Murray at QB, this team will only get better.

 

[PACardsFan]

lol. A second-rate executive of the year award from PFT. What a joke.

also, didn’t Brice Arians basically earn those awards? How can you have it both ways — Arians get all the blame and Keim gets all the credit?

Arians was a very good HC, and deserves ALL the credit for what happened on the football field. It’s when he had too much say in the draft room that things went south. BA had a little Dr. Frankenstein in him. He just loved the small school hidden gems that he just thought he could coach up to all pro status. With the success that the Cardinals were having those first 3 years, both MB & SK allowed BA to have too much influence when it came to building rosters. Between 2013 -2015, we had a legit chance to go to a SB. Unfortunately, injuries derailed everything. After the beat down in the NFC Championship game against Carolina, that team should have been dismantled. But BA convinced MB that the window wasn’t closed. There’s enough credit & blame for all 3 of them. I just don’t think Michael will fire Keim just yet.

 

[GatorAZ]

Because that's what was being offered? We were in direct competition with someone offering a top pick for that player. It's like asking if you'd rather sell your car for $25k right now or wait a year for $100k. The answer is very obvious. It's obvious both teams were not enamored with anyone on the board, and a first round pick is too great to pass up.

It's not like this is a setup where the closer team gets right of first refusal, you have to outbid the other offer. It worked out especially well for the Browns too, who got a top 5 pick out of the whole thing.

It was somewhat rhetorical because we’ll never know the answer. We don’t know what picks the Cards were offering or to which team... Or maybe they had no desire to move up at all. But there’s is a difference in value between 12 spots and at the end of the day the aggressive bird got the worm.

 

[JosiahLee]

I’m still mad the Texans jumped ahead of us...Keim should have saw it coming.

Great move by the Texans, they would still be in purgatory without Watson.

 

[Cardsfaninlouky]

Cleveland is 17th in Special Teams DVOA. Arizona is 29th.

I think Amos Jones is in Tampa with BA? I don't think he is in Cleveland? I may be wrong?

 

[Cardsfaninlouky]

I dunno. The plan B Keim executed was pretty awesome.

Sarcasm, I like it. Reddick, woo hoo, well executed plan B lol.

 

[Cardsfaninlouky]

It was somewhat rhetorical because we’ll never know the answer. We don’t know what picks the Cards were offering or to which team... Or maybe they had no desire to move up at all. But there’s is a difference in value between 12 spots and at the end of the day the aggressive bird got the worm.

Watson is bigger, some questioned his arm strength before the draft, seems to be doing just fine. He's taking a lot of hits in Houston. Being a bigger QB, as long as he doesn't go all "Cam Newton" & try to run over tacklers, he should hold up & have a long career? Watson or PM would've been fine by me. I'm happy with who we have now though. I feel like KM will continue to grow & have us in contention. The FO needs to fix this team though & continue to add & subtract as needed, don't wait till a player is over the hill to get rid of him. That's where the problem is, the FO, they need to get this team right. Will they? Big question.

 

[Cardsfaninlouky]

Harry, I love your takes almost everywhere else, but looking at this one as Keim’s fault doesn’t make any sense. Are you proposing we should have given up a first round pick to move up 1-3 spots? The fan base would have rioted, we would have been laughing stocks... for QBs that at the time, people were heavily questioning.

We just didn’t have the right position to make a move. Plenty of people were questioning if Mahomes and Watson would even go in the first round.

And at the end of the day, neither of the teams trading back were going to turn down a future first round pick for whatever we were offering.

You're right. Many so called experts were questioning both QB's. SK shouldn't have listened & got aggressive. Both QB's are now doing very well. Shows you how good are scouting dept is compared to the Texans & Chiefs lol.

 

[Cardsfaninlouky]

As usual, we can blame Keim because the Cardinals weren't proactive enough to move up and go after Mahomes & Watson. Harry, you've been around long enough to know that the Cardinals franchise NEVER EVER moved up in a situation like that. Bill didn't do it & neither did Michael. Until we moved up to pick Rosen, I'm not sure we EVER moved up to pick a QB in the 1st round. We pretty much always sat and waited. Exactly why I always prefer the Cardinals lose meaningless games at the end of the season. If we didn't have the 1st pick last year, we never would have moved up to try to pick Murray. Especially since Rosen flopped. We are not a dysfunctional franchise because of Steve Keim. We're dysfunctional because of the Bidwills. Don't get me wrong, the Bidwills are great people. But, boy do they struggle as owners of a professional football franchise.

I was glad when Michael took over, he opened up the checkbook which God rest his soul, Bill wouldn't do. That being said, maybe Michael opened it up a little too freely because SK got silly with it lol.

 

[Cardsfaninlouky]

Why would he have come out to save face? Teams almost never disclose who they were trying to get, at least not until years later. What good does it do for the franchise, ticket sales, or the choice of Haason Reddick to come out immediately and say "gee guys, this was really our third choice, but we got screwed?" I'm not sure you're thinking about this organizationally, just from a fan's lens, where ticket sales and all other things don't count.

It wouldn't have hurt my feelings one bit if they told the truth about which QB they were going to take, immediately following the draft. Reddick should be happy he's even currently still getting a paycheck lol. Everyone knew we needed a QB, their scouts are just better than ours, knew how good PM & DW were gonna be & called our bluff. If SK actually wanted either QB, seems to me he was banking on other teams believing all the negative things being said about both. Didn't think other teams would trade up because of that. He gambled & lost. Split a pair of tens at the blackjack table. We have our QB now so I'm not worried.

 

[Cardsfaninlouky]

How in the hell is Bridgewater a disaster?He has made a solid comeback from his near career ending injury and is 5-0 as a starter this year.He had more wins as a starter on his career than our current QB will likely get in 4 years.Bridgewater is 22-12 as a starter.1 Pro-Bowl,1 playoff game where he lead the team down the field in the last 3 minutes and the kicker shanked a FG.And he is still only 27 years old.Bridgewater would have been a solid QB to draft.

Bridgewater wasn't a disaster, you are correct. Had he not gotten hurt, he would've been a star by now. I like Teddy, would love to see him get picked up for a starters job. I disagree about him having more wins than KM in 4 yrs though. KM Will get us more than 22 wins in 4 yrs.

 

[Solar7]

So Brees was a bad pick for the Chargers?

Yes, he was a bad pick. If we are looking to replace Kyler at QB with a first overall draft pick in 5 years (like the Chargers did), it will be a bad pick.

But he didn't do any of those things...hence the point I think you may be passing up here...that keim is a reactionary gm. That's what most are saying that you are disagreeing with.....and I would argue the Rosen trade up as pure desperation on the orgs part. So once again, reactionary. Jmo

If Keim was a "reactionary" GM, he would have traded his first round pick for Watson the moment that Mahomes went off the board. A panic move, which is apparently what you're all arguing for.

Nope you’re wrong on all those. All those were great picks. The teams inability to recognize what they had or develop them was at fault. But the pucks themselves were excellent.

Ridiculous. They are great players, but the team deserves no credit at all. They ****ed up. Identify players that fit your system, or adapt to those players if they are great. You don't win football games by picking players for other teams.

Cheese and I were not in that group of idiots that thought we were gunning for the playoffs. We wanted a QB.

also, who the hell cares what the fans want? If he identified Watson or Mahomes and was aggressive and got them, that’s what you pay a GM to do, be smarter than us fan doofuses and keep his job. And if he identified Paxson and was aggressive he’d have been dumber than us doofuses and deserved to be fired.

It was somewhat rhetorical because we’ll never know the answer. We don’t know what picks the Cards were offering or to which team... Or maybe they had no desire to move up at all. But there’s is a difference in value between 12 spots and at the end of the day the aggressive bird got the worm.

To both of you guys, would you argue that we just trade away our entire draft every year for who we "identify?" I'll invoke Ricky Williams again... that ruined their team. We can't even field a roster next year with our picks. Wanna trade away more?

I'm not sure what's happened to this board, but football logic seems to have disappeared. Maybe too much Madden.