Time for some Kool-aid. I like this draft.

[ReddBird]

They did, his name is Skelton. I have been one of the biggest advocates for drafting a QBOTF but if none of the QB's this year show you more then Skelton then why bother drafting another developmental QB. As K9 has posted countless times there aren't enough reps on an NFL for 2 young QB's to be developed. I'm not all in on Skelton but I'm not drafting a QB just to draft a QB. Any QB taken this year would have a wasted year due to the current lockout. Let's see what we have in Skelton and if need be draft a youngin next year. K9 has also pointed out the getting Bulger or Hassleback or.... in FA would be very difficult if we had picked a QB earlier in the draft.

Exactly right.

 

[Seandonic]

Re: OLB - Sam Acho is still on the board going into the 4th. rd.

This would be nice. I think Acho and a free-agent pick-up like Matt Roth(I think he's still available) would make me(as if I matter) feel a lot better about the OLB position.

 

[kerouac9]

Nice point.

IMO people on this board have vastly overrated the second tier of pass rushers in this draft. Guys like Brooks Reed, Sam Acho, etc. were likely much lower on the Cardinals board than Ryan Williams and Rob Housler.

Caveat: I didn't want to draft PP7, but that said I can agree that the guys is dynamite and will instantly improve the tackling and playmaking of our defense.

There was a reason that I wanted us to take Robert Quinn; IMO he is going to be the best pass rusher in this draft and Mike Mayock even said that if he meets his potential he will be. After Quinn, the fall off to Brooks Reed, Jabaal Sheard, etc was massive and the team didn't feel that any of them were as good as Ryan Williams is.

What Williams brings is an ability to make something out of nothing. Watch the tape of him in 2009; no RB on our roster has that ability. Wells and THT are both straight line runs who don't have the creativity that Williams brings. I wouldn't doubt that when Whisenhunt and the staff watched game film of our team that they saw many runs that our backs lost yardage on or gained a few yards that a better back would've produced more. Now we have that back on our team, and with THT and Wells still on the roster we have a nice blend of different abilities.

The lack of production from the TE position is likely due to the underwhelming talent we have there. After playing teams like GB and the Saints the past couple of years and getting burned by their TEs and having to scheme around them, the Cardinals decided that the need for an offensive playmaker was greater than the need for a third tier passrusher (Sam Acho? Bleeeech). The guy I liked best at our 3rd pick, Nate Irving, went off the board a few picks before us. IMO he was the only ILB worthy of a 1-3 round pick. And even if you liked Sheppard better he was gone too, so by that point in time we had little choice to address our OLB or ILB needs.

In summation, if we really wanted to draft a pass rusher, the best spot to do it was at #5. And arguably we got a better prospect than any of the pass rushers available.

This is quite a change in your tune from 3 months ago when you were saying that there was no way the Cards could rush because teams were putting 9 or 10 in the box and daring us to pass on them. Now the Cards run game left tons of yards on the field?

When I watched Williams 2009 highlight reel, it looked like he was running through gigantic holes against terrible defenses. There were a couple of times where he reversed field, but we've seen Hightower do that as well.

The fact of the matter is that we invested another high pick in a position where we have had no investment in the run game for Ken Whisenhunt's entire tenure with the team. If we didn't run Beanie Wells after we drafted him in the first round, why would we expect Ryan Wiliams to be given the ball frequently enough to justify his pick plus giving up on Beanie?

 

[Red Dawn]

There are some very good points in this thread, a few sips of koolaid hit the spot. I think few of us suspected we would go offense in Rd. 2 and 3.

Now it's up to the players to prove their worth. I would be thrilled if Housler turns into the Boss. Nothing gets the blood going like a TE running over some DB's.