Keim with an eye on 2015

[RugbyMuffin]

ATTENTION!!!

If you are a member of the "win now" club, or "Super Bowl or Bust" club, please realize this thread is not for you.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

We are talking long term in this thread. The Niner, and Seahawks didn't become great over night. Bruce Arians "win now" talk is nice, but unrealistic.

This blog post was the best thing post at that site in weeks:
http://blog.azcardinals.com/2013/09/24/keim-with-an-eye-on-2015/

Turning this team around is not going to happen over night. I concede there is some talent on the roster, but at the time Arians took over, the following positions were DEVOID of NFL talent: LT, LG, OC, RG, QB, TE, RB, SILB, OLB, CB2

And one can underscore: QB, RB, LT, OLB, CB2 as positions that are EXTREMELY important for a NFL team to succeed.

Some of those positions have been address, but with youth, which needs time to develop, and band aid, that are not going to hurt or help the team (except for Carson Palmer who is a huge improvement, and comparing him to John Skelton is being over dramatic and ridiculous, IMO).

So, 3 years Keim hopes to have this roster where he wants it.

http://www.overthecap.com/teamcap.php?Team=Cardinals&Year=2013

The Cardinals currently have 14 million dollars in dead cap space, and another 29.325 million dollars tied up in Calais Campbell, Darnell Dockett, Daryn Colledge, and Levi Brown.

Between those four players, and the dead money for this season, we are talking about 43.5 million dollars in cap space.

......and Larry Fitzgerald is the problem ? Come on, man!

The dead money will be gone by next year, yet will be replaced by another big dead money number, especially if this squad has 10+ loses. Guys are going to lose their jobs.

Say what you want about Dockett and Campbell, those two are debatable, IMO, but there is no way they continue to pay Levi Brown, and Colledge those salary numbers, not to mention Lyle Sendlein is not in the clear as well.

So while the cap situation looks dire from afar, if you get into the details the Cardinals are doing a good job or trying to free themselves from the mistakes of the past.

So, looking forward, you have this season to develop and see what the players currently playing this season have to offer, we are only 3 weeks into the season for Pete's sake. There are two more drafts to go through, and two more free agency periods.

If the organization can get a pass rusher, LT, and QBOF, there will be hope in the desert, IMHO.

Mods please fix the title, thanks!

 

[kerouac9]

I like your optimism, but this is like kicking over a Monopoly game in the middle because you want to play Risk. Either way, you're starting completely over, and the next round is going to take way, way, WAY too long.

The question to me is (1) can you trust Keim to bring in talent to re-build a super-bowl quality team through the draft, and (2) can you trust Keim to maintain a competitive-ish team for the next two years with middling veterans on short-term contracts?

The other side is that if a veteran plays well on a one-year deal here, he's going to be gone. At least this year.

It's sad that Urban's already softening the ground for the departures of Dockett, Colledge, Brown, Roberts, etc., etc.

The ultimate question is whether this staff is talented enough to replace those guys with better players while also strengthening other areas of the team and compensating for prospects who don't work out, etc., etc.

When guys like Jamell Fleming wash out of your program after a year, that's a long-term strategic problem for building your team.

 

[Mulli]

 

[Duckjake]

Totally disagree with almost everything except them trying to get the dead $ under control.

But then you all know I hate decisions being made based on pay instead of play and that our roster last year was not near as bad as some would think.

3 year plan #1,487.

 

[Mulli]

So, weird Mulli question #39,141:

Does that include this past off-season? I mean does Keim think it reasonable for fans to have to sit through 4 off-seasons for this current front office/coaching staff to re-tool the roster?

That seems like an okay plan, I guess, but doesn't seem like a smart thing for a GM to say publically.

Right?

 

[kerouac9]

So, weird Mulli question #39,141:

Does that include this past off-season? I mean does Keim think it reasonable for fans to have to sit through 4 off-seasons for this current front office/coaching staff to re-tool the roster?

That seems like an okay plan, I guess, but doesn't seem like a smart thing for a GM to say publically.

Right?

I don't think that 80% of most fans really care about what happens in the offseason. I think that 90% of fans here care really deeply about offseason activity, but after the first round or two of the draft, and the first day of free agency (if it features someone who was on a fantasy team last year), the large majority of fans don't follow offseason action.

You'll hear it often at preseason games. "What happened to that guy with the long hair?"

"Daryn College? He's injured."

"No, the other one."

"Adam Snyder? He went back to San Francisco."

"Huh."

 

[Mulli]

Ok ok, I read the article KKeim was talking about $$. What a strange thing for a GM to say.

 

[RugbyMuffin]

The question to me is (1) can you trust Keim to bring in talent to re-build a super-bowl quality team through the draft, and (2) can you trust Keim to maintain a competitive-ish team for the next two years with middling veterans on short-term contracts?

The other side is that if a veteran plays well on a one-year deal here, he's going to be gone. At least this year.

It's sad that Urban's already softening the ground for the departures of Dockett, Colledge, Brown, Roberts, etc., etc.

The ultimate question is whether this staff is talented enough to replace those guys with better players while also strengthening other areas of the team and compensating for prospects who don't work out, etc., etc.

When guys like Jamell Fleming wash out of your program after a year, that's a long-term strategic problem for building your team.

Good questions, and I am not going to pretend I have the answers.

You are 100% right that the organization can free up all the money they want, but if they bring in Travis LaBoy, and Adam Snyder it is not going to accomplish anything.

BTW - No so much trying to be optimistic, as I am just talking about this so called plan. That and I was amazed by the dead money the Cardinals are holding right now.

 

[Mulli]

I know it is hard to care about what multi-millionaire players think, but this doesn't seem to be a wonderful way to keep the players happy and all pulling in the same direction.

 

[RugbyMuffin]

Totally disagree with almost everything except them trying to get the dead $ under control.

But then you all know I hate decisions being made based on pay instead of play and that our roster last year was not near as bad as some would think

So you would have been OK with the 2013 starting offense being

QB: John Skelton
HB: William Powell
TE: Rob Housler
TE: Jim Dray
WR: Larry Fitzgerald
WR: Michael Floyd
LT: Nate Potter
LG: Daryn Colledge
OC: Lyle Sendlein
RG: Adam Snyder
RT: Bobby Massie

Bold statement.

 

[Duckjake]

So you would have been OK with the 2013 starting offense being

QB: John Skelton
HB: William Powell
TE: Rob Housler
TE: Jim Dray
WR: Larry Fitzgerald
WR: Michael Floyd
LT: Nate Potter
LG: Daryn Colledge
OC: Lyle Sendlein
RG: Adam Snyder
RT: Bobby Massie

Bold statement.

Substitute Carson Palmer for John Skelton and Jon Cooper for Adam Snyder and the two starters who missed most of the season injured, Levi Brown and Beanie Wells and I'm fine with that. After all there will be 7 guys from last year's roster starting Sunday using your configuration.

Brown, Colledge, Sendlein, Fitz, Housler, Floyd, Dray. And I think Massie is every bit as good as Eric Winston. That doesn't really indicate a roster full of huge holes just one that desperately needed a QB and a little tweaking.

We've gone from only needing decent QB play to having a roster devoid of talent since last October.

 

[Mulli]

Substitute Carson Palmer for John Skelton and Jon Cooper for Adam Snyder and the two starters who missed most of the season injured, Levi Brown and Beanie Wells and I'm fine with that. After all there will be 7 guys from last year's roster starting Sunday using your configuration.

Brown, Colledge, Sendlein, Fitz, Housler, Floyd, Dray. And I think Massie is every bit as good as Eric Winston. That doesn't really indicate a roster full of huge holes just one the desperately needed a QB and a little tweaking.

Ya, that OL is only associated with huge holes for the opposing defenders to run through.

 

[Duckjake]

Ya, that OL is only associated with huge holes for the opposing defenders to run through.

Well the 43 Offensive line coaches the Cards brought in were supposed to fix that.

 

[RugbyMuffin]

Substitute Carson Palmer for John Skelton and Jon Cooper for Adam Snyder and the two starters who missed most of the season injured, Levi Brown and Beanie Wells and I'm fine with that. After all there will be 7 guys from last year's roster starting Sunday using your configuration.

Brown, Colledge, Sendlein, Fitz, Housler, Floyd, Dray. And I think Massie is every bit as good as Eric Winston. That doesn't really indicate a roster full of huge holes just one that desperately needed a QB and a little tweaking.

We've gone from only needing decent QB play to having a roster devoid of talent since last October.

1. Fair Enough, but you are in fact saying that last year's roster needed to be changed.

2. We replaced: Skelton, Wells, Snyder, Massie, Potter kind of, Schofield, Paris Lenon, William Gay, Adrian Wilson, and Kerry Rhodes.

If losing Wilson and Rhodes equates to taking the roster and making it devoid of talent, then so be it, but I do not agree in the least.

Then to say the depth of Rich Orhnberger, D'Anthony Batiste, Nick Eason, Vonnie Holliday, Jamel Flemming, Michael Adams, Beanie Wells, LaRod Stephens-Howling, etc., etc. the list goes on hasn't been upgraded, and that it is in fact worse ?

I dunno about that.

Not saying we are fielding All-Pros but I fail to see this drop off the cliff of talent you speak of, and how you see the players from last year being better than what we have now depth wise.

 

[Mulli]

Well the 43 Offensive line coaches the Cards brought in were supposed to fix that.

Pick the 5 best, might play better than the 2012 line did.

 

[RugbyMuffin]

Well the 43 Offensive line coaches the Cards brought in were supposed to fix that.

Its been 3 weeks, with more or less the same offensive line as last year.

 

[Chopper0080]

So you would have been OK with the 2013 starting offense being

QB: John Skelton
HB: William Powell
TE: Rob Housler
TE: Jim Dray
WR: Larry Fitzgerald
WR: Michael Floyd
LT: Nate Potter
LG: Daryn Colledge
OC: Lyle Sendlein
RG: Adam Snyder
RT: Bobby Massie

Bold statement.

The issue is that instead of focusing the offseason on improving the offensive talent, Keim and Arians decided to also dismantle the defense. Instead of signing Brinkley and Alexander, maybe we could have used that money to sign Martellus Bennett? Instead of Minter in round 2 upgrading the SILB spot, maybe we look towards Vance McDonald? My point is that we could have gradually inserted youth into the defense which would have allowed us to dedicate more resources to the offense.

 

[Duckjake]

1. Fair Enough, but you are in fact saying that last year's roster needed to be changed.

2. We replaced: Skelton, Wells, Snyder, Massie, Potter kind of, Schofield, Paris Lenon, William Gay, Adrian Wilson, and Kerry Rhodes.

If losing Wilson and Rhodes equates to taking the roster and making it devoid of talent, then so be it, but I do not agree in the least.

Then to say the depth of Rich Orhnberger, D'Anthony Batiste, Nick Eason, Vonnie Holliday, Jamel Flemming, Michael Adams, Beanie Wells, LaRod Stephens-Howling, etc., etc. the list goes on hasn't been upgraded, and that it is in fact worse ?

I dunno about that.

Not saying we are fielding All-Pros but I fail to see this drop off the cliff of talent you speak of, and how you see the players from last year being better than what we have now depth wise.

Where did I write that there was a drop off the cliff of talent this year. I was just saying our roster last year without the injuries wasn't as bad as a lot of people like to say. That doesn't reflect at all on the talent level of this year's roster.

As for changing the roster of course it needed to be done Lenon was getting old and our QB play was atrocious and even though I think Wells was ok there were, and still seem to be injury concerns with him, and lord knows we needed a decent Guard. But we could have been fine with the normal changes NFL teams go through every year.

Did you know we only had 5 starters going into 2012 left from the 2010 team. And of course both years the Cards finished 5-11.

5-11 with 'em. 5-11 without 'em.

 

[RugbyMuffin]

The issue is that instead of focusing the offseason on improving the offensive talent, Keim and Arians decided to also dismantle the defense. Instead of signing Brinkley and Alexander, maybe we could have used that money to sign Martellus Bennett? Instead of Minter in round 2 upgrading the SILB spot, maybe we look towards Vance McDonald? My point is that we could have gradually inserted youth into the defense which would have allowed us to dedicate more resources to the offense.

Very true.

The firing of Horton has never sat well with me, but it is the past. I put it behind me a couple months after he was fired, that and I was tired of endlessly debating how good Horton's defense and his scheme was, and how we would really miss his mind within the organization. I was a madman on this board for a while for that perspective on Horton's defense......seems now people are changing their tune, but that is neither here nor there. Horton is not coming back, and Arians cleaned house.

There were absolutely no chance this defense was not going to take step back. I actually am surprised at how well they have done so far, and marginally surprised at how bad the offense has looked, I stress marginally because people were fooling themselves that this offensive line was going to be able to do anything this year.

Yet, I still scratch me head about letting Adrian Wilson go, but he is in fact not playing anywhere right now, and the other head scratcher, Kerry Rhodes, is not playing anywhere either.

Outside of that on defense, who did we lose ? William Gay ? O'Brien "LT" Schofield ? Paris Lenon ?

Kevin Minter, Tyrann Matheui, Patrick Peterson is a pretty good start to bringing in some quality young talent.

Not to mention our biggest acquisition in Jonathan Cooper is on IR, and he was playing really well for this team as a rookie.

I dunno. There are definite concerns about Bruce Arians and company, but it is 3 weeks into their first season.

Whiz was given an obscene amount of time per the failure he produce, I think Arians deserves at least two seasons worth of time.

 

[RugbyMuffin]

Where did I write that there was a drop off the cliff of talent this year.

here, in post #11. Tomato, TomAto

We've gone from only needing decent QB play to having a roster devoid of talent since last October.

And please, I am just responding to the debate, and what I determine after 3 weeks, so the argument I can make is weak at best until more time passes. Can this team fall apart and go 1-15 ? Sure, there is a chance of that happening, but I feel that has to do more with problems from the past than from the present. Nobody is going to do much with an offensive line like that, and it seems the fans (who some many love to trash for "not knowing anything" seem to be the only ones that are in realization of that fact).

Cooper going down was devastating as an injury comes.

5-11 with 'em. 5-11 without 'em.

Yeah, very true. Especially this year.

 

[Duckjake]

here, in post #11. Tomato, TomAto



And please, I am just responding to the debate, and what I determine after 3 weeks, so the argument I can make is weak at best until more time passes. Can this team fall apart and go 1-15 ? Sure, there is a chance of that happening, but I feel that has to do more with problems from the past than from the present. Nobody is going to do much with an offensive line like that, and it seems the fans (who some many love to trash for "not knowing anything" seem to be the only ones that are in realization of that fact).

Cooper going down was devastating as an injury comes.




Yeah, very true. Especially this year.

Sorry you misunderstood. I should have made it more clear that I was referring to posts on ASFN. I should have written "a roster devoid of talent last year".

 

[Chopper0080]

Very true.

The firing of Horton has never sat well with me, but it is the past. I put it behind me a couple months after he was fired, that and I was tired of endlessly debating how good Horton's defense and his scheme was, and how we would really miss his mind within the organization. I was a madman on this board for a while for that perspective on Horton's defense......seems now people are changing their tune, but that is neither here nor there. Horton is not coming back, and Arians cleaned house.

There were absolutely no chance this defense was not going to take step back. I actually am surprised at how well they have done so far, and marginally surprised at how bad the offense has looked, I stress marginally because people were fooling themselves that this offensive line was going to be able to do anything this year.

Yet, I still scratch me head about letting Adrian Wilson go, but he is in fact not playing anywhere right now, and the other head scratcher, Kerry Rhodes, is not playing anywhere either.

Outside of that on defense, who did we lose ? William Gay ? O'Brien "LT" Schofield ? Paris Lenon ?

Kevin Minter, Tyrann Matheui, Patrick Peterson is a pretty good start to bringing in some quality young talent.

Not to mention our biggest acquisition in Jonathan Cooper is on IR, and he was playing really well for this team as a rookie.

I dunno. There are definite concerns about Bruce Arians and company, but it is 3 weeks into their first season.

Whiz was given an obscene amount of time per the failure he produce, I think Arians deserves at least two seasons worth of time.

You missed my point a bit. It isn't that they let Horton go (reports state he wanted out after not getting the job), it is that they then proceeded to blow up the entire staff and scheme on defense. They had an established system that had proven to be effective and they had staff in place who could continue teaching that system. Maybe it would have not been as effective but the drop off would have been minimal.

In regards to the defensive personnel, again it was the unnecessary moves that were made which cost resources that could have been used on the offense. We paid 3 mil to sign Alexander and sign Schofield. We spent 3 mil to sign Brinkley and then used a top 60 draft pick to draft Minter. We cut Wilson to sign the older Bell. Do you really need to cut Gay to sign Cason when you are signing Powers to be the #2 CB anyway? Again, it isn't that we didn't have areas to upgrade on defense, it is we tried to switch up the entire defense in the same offseason we decided to switch the system. Now, not only do players have to learn new language, scheme and responsibilities, they also have to learn about what the player next to them can do as well.

What the Bears did on defense is the [erfect example. The Bears brought in a defensive coach who decided to learn the Bears terminology, use it while blending in his own, and gradually tweek the scheme to his liking acknowledging the Bears had an asset in the defense we was inheriting.

 

[Cheesebeef]

1. Fair Enough, but you are in fact saying that last year's roster needed to be changed.

2. We replaced: Skelton, Wells, Snyder, Massie, Potter kind of, Schofield, Paris Lenon, William Gay, Adrian Wilson, and Kerry Rhodes.

is there a reason you keep leaving off Toler and Groves? Neither Scho nor Groves were all-world talents, but they were much better depth...or maybe even starters then Alexander and better depth than anything we had. And our #2 CB and #3 CB have been pretty awful as well.

 

[Mulli]

is there a reason you keep leaving off Toler and Groves? Neither Scho nor Groves were all-world talents, but they were much better depth...or maybe even starters then Alexander and better depth than anything we had. And our #2 CB and #3 CB have been pretty awful as well.

Same reason you said the Cards started season with only 3 OLB's?

 

[RugbyMuffin]

is there a reason you keep leaving off Toler and Groves? Neither Scho nor Groves were all-world talents, but they were much better depth...or maybe even starters then Alexander and better depth than anything we had. And our #2 CB and #3 CB have been pretty awful as well.

Cause I forgot them

Groves, and especially Toler were better depth, no doubt.

I really hated not getting Groves back, and I have always liked Toler, whom is playing very well for the Colts, at least what I have seen.