Way-too-early Monti Ossenfort Performance Review

[dreamcastrocks]

One thing that this poll has proved is that like 2/3 of Arizona Cardinals fans are masochists. Monti has delivered nothing but pain and the possibility that there might be relief from the pain in the future. Fans here are loving it.

ALL Cards fans are masochists. You'd have to be to still support this team after decades of ineptitude.

 

[Harry]

I think the plan is clear. Strip it down, get Monti's guys in to evaluate talent, roll over some cap space, and have a big draft next year.

Dumping everyone is not a plan. If piling up picks and money worked everybody would do it and we’d see a bunch of success stories. Identifying talent moving up and signing them is a plan. I don’t think just passing on a year of free agency moves a team forward. Yeah, you take a chance by giving out a 4 year contract, but the right contract gives the team a pillar to use to start a foundation. Once that year is gone, it’s lost forever. There will always be competition for good players. The Cards have no idea if any of them will go to Arizona even with a top offer. I think you take every chance you have to improve your team. Sure the Cards were a tough sell, but that’s the job and it won’t change dramatically if they start over with a rookie QB. How many years can you rebuild? How many good FAs can you signing one year? Even the best teams typically miss on half their draft picks. You have to run some risks. Victory rarely goes to the faint of heart.

 

[kerouac9]

Dumping everyone is not a plan. If piling up picks and money worked everybody would do it and we’d see a bunch of success stories. Identifying talent moving up and signing them is a plan. I don’t think just passing on a year of free agency moves a team forward. Yeah, you take a chance by giving out a 4 year contract, but the right contract gives the team a pillar to use to start a foundation. Once that year is gone, it’s lost forever. There will always be competition for good players. The Cards have no idea if any of them will go to Arizona even with a top offer. I think you take every chance you have to improve your team. Sure the Cards were a tough sell, but that’s the job and it won’t change dramatically if they start over with a rookie QB. How many years can you rebuild? How many good FAs can you signing one year? Even the best teams typically miss on half their draft picks. You have to run some risks. Victory rarely goes to the faint of heart.

No one said it was a good plan.

May this novel model will work out for both us and Houston at the same time. The Browns tried it and ended up hitting the reset button after three seasons of Baker Mayfield.

It's really hard to look ahead a year and see us competing for a playoff spot in 2024. The vision is the OL gels around Hernandez, Johnson, and Humphries, Kyler evolves as a pro-style QB, you keep Hollywood (probably), then figure out the defense in 2024 free agency and the draft.

Maybe!

 

[Chopper0080]

I agree that a lot of this is dependent upon Gannon doing more with less on defense, and Kyler being able to execute behind a top offensive line.

 

[Krangodnzr]

Dumping everyone is not a plan. If piling up picks and money worked everybody would do it and we’d see a bunch of success stories. Identifying talent moving up and signing them is a plan. I don’t think just passing on a year of free agency moves a team forward. Yeah, you take a chance by giving out a 4 year contract, but the right contract gives the team a pillar to use to start a foundation.

It's exceedingly rare that any pillar is signed through FA by any team

Once that year is gone, it’s lost forever. There will always be competition for good players. The Cards have no idea if any of them will go to Arizona even with a top offer. I think you take every chance you have to improve your team.

If you are shooting for a top pick, you have to really bottom out though. Resigning or signing good young players now might hurt that objective.

Sure the Cards were a tough sell, but that’s the job and it won’t change dramatically if they start over with a rookie QB.

Yes they can dramatically change if they have a good young QB on a rookie contract.

How many years can you rebuild? How many good FAs can you signing one year? Even the best teams typically miss on half their draft picks.

Right and you can supplement a bit in free agency.

You have to run some risks. Victory rarely goes to the faint of heart.

And the conservative run it back with Keim's core of losers augmented with free agents that present a 25% hit rate would be much better? With Keim's personnel people making all of the suggestions? Yeah no, I understand Monti's plan. Not saying it will work, but I understand it.

 

[DaHilg]

I agree that a lot of this is dependent upon Gannon doing more with less on defense, and Kyler being able to execute behind a top offensive line.

Except we don’t have a top end OL.. love the Johnson pick, still think Hump is a bottom quarter of the league LT that now with the known injury that extension is looking foolish. You don’t spend a #6 overall pick w envisions of him being the future LT to be groomed for 3-4 years to take over that position.

 

[Krangodnzr]

Except we don’t have a top end OL.. love the Johnson pick, still think Hump is a bottom quarter of the league LT that now with the known injury that extension is looking foolish. You don’t spend a #6 overall pick w envisions of him being the future LT to be groomed for 3-4 years to take over that position.

Humphries isn't a bottom quarter LT. He is easily a mid tier LT, and is probably the best OL overall during the Arizona Cardinals era.

Hernandez played well last year too.

 

[CardNots]

Humphries isn't a bottom quarter LT. He is easily a mid tier LT, and is probably the best OL overall during the Arizona Cardinals era.

Hernandez played well last year too.

Luis sharpe, not even close

 

[Krangodnzr]

Luis sharpe, not even close

Arizona era. Luis was up and down his last few seasons in AZ so he doesn't really qualify.

 

[Harry]

Through the years I’ve coined a few adages. One applies here. If you’re going to put all you eggs in one basket, be careful not to drop the basket. The Cards have succeeded in emptying the old personnel. They are targeting 2024, having set aside money for FAs and piling up draft picks. So everything rides on succeeding in both aspects. If the Cards fail in either category, this could be a very drawn out rebuild with only incremental progress. The problem is there are so many variables. Where will the 2 first round picks be placed? First and third would be great; seventh and tenth much more problematic. As to FAs, who will be tagged? Who will be re-signed by their team? The Cards have a tremendous number of holes. At best how many could be filled in a single year even with money and picks? Finally does this administration, even with augmenting the front office, have the ability to produce a draft for the ages. They have a great deal of restructuring to do. There is little margin for error.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

I think you're right, that the plan was 2025 all along. That's why I'm displeased with the plan. 2023? Dead year. We were never going to be any good. We had to start over. 2024 year should be the year we take a run at making the playoffs, in my view. That's also why I didn't like FA, because it was a missed opportunity not to compete for this year, but to make us better in 2024. Basically, I don't think you need 2 complete years to rebuild in the NFL. It's a fast turnaround league.

It will certainly be interesting to see what works and what doesn't

Let’s make sure we are clear, 2025 means it took three offseasons to make a run at the playoffs. That’s a lot of draft picks and free agency periods.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Everyone tampers all of the time. He self reported. What would cause him to self report? Maybe it's because lawyers will be digging through the Cardinals communications in the next year over the Terry McDonough situation?

Tanking moves.

I thinking “tanking” is now being used as an excuse for him. Being purposefully bad - eve if there’s some necessity behind it - isn’t a feather in anyones cap. Anyone can do that.

 

[football karma]

Where will the 2 first round picks be placed? First and third would be great; seventh and tenth much more problematic.

while I agree that 7th and 10th arent as good as 1st and 2nd,

I dont see having two top 10 draft picks as a problem

 

[KiwiCard]

while I agree that 7th and 10th arent as good as 1st and 2nd,

I dont see having two top 10 draft picks as a problem

Likewise if the Cards pick is 7th it means we have likely had some players take a step up, unearthed some hidden gems, coaching is high quality, or most likely a combination of all. All of which are good things in my mind.

 

[oaken1]

while I agree that 7th and 10th arent as good as 1st and 2nd,

I dont see having two top 10 draft picks as a problem

Except we would have to trade them both to get MHJ

 

[Stout]

Let’s make sure we are clear, 2025 means it took three offseasons to make a run at the playoffs. That’s a lot of draft picks and free agency periods.

Yet that's now our minimum *smh*

 

[Stout]

Likewise if the Cards pick is 7th it means we have likely had some players take a step up, unearthed some hidden gems, coaching is high quality, or most likely a combination of all. All of which are good things in my mind.

...until those surprisingly good players on 1-year contracts then walk for bigger money.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

I hate that Monti let Zach go & couldn’t nab a single pick for Hopkins.

However, I do acknowledge & admire he’s making very low-risk signings when he knows this will be a lost season. Keim would be the type to throw high money to Tremaine Edmunds.

Keim only looked forward to the upcoming season when it was clear we didn’t have the assets to compete at a high level. I think Monti is acquiring those assets for more than just one season.

I give Monti a B- so far.

Would we not be allowed to sign edmunds to a multi-year contract?

 

[KiwiCard]

...until those surprisingly good players on 1-year contracts then walk for bigger money.

Yup I guess you have too be prepared too loose some with this model, I would 'hope' that with our available salary cap the team would be able to secure key players of these. But it is the cards.....

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

I think the plan is clear. Strip it down, get Monti's guys in to evaluate talent, roll over some cap space, and have a big draft next year.

I don’t consider that a plan.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Dumping everyone is not a plan. If piling up picks and money worked everybody would do it and we’d see a bunch of success stories. Identifying talent moving up and signing them is a plan. I don’t think just passing on a year of free agency moves a team forward. Yeah, you take a chance by giving out a 4 year contract, but the right contract gives the team a pillar to use to start a foundation. Once that year is gone, it’s lost forever. There will always be competition for good players. The Cards have no idea if any of them will go to Arizona even with a top offer. I think you take every chance you have to improve your team. Sure the Cards were a tough sell, but that’s the job and it won’t change dramatically if they start over with a rookie QB. How many years can you rebuild? How many good FAs can you signing one year? Even the best teams typically miss on half their draft picks. You have to run some risks. Victory rarely goes to the faint of heart.

This. All of this.

 

[Stout]

I don’t consider that a plan.

Well, it is a plan. Just a really, really bad one.

 

[Krangodnzr]

Well, it is a plan. Just a really, really bad one.

What's funny is that some people around here are overrating what the outcomes could have been.

With Murray out for probably a good chunk of the year, this team was going to suck anyway. Might as well REALLY suck and get a good pick.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

What's funny is that some people around here are overrating what the outcomes could have been.

With Murray out for probably a good chunk of the year, this team was going to suck anyway. Might as well REALLY suck and get a good pick.

This team just had the third pick in the draft. It already “REALLY sucked.” Making it worse means that much more digging outta a hole to get back to relevancy. Purposefully getting worse is . . . getting worse. There’s no guarantee you get better. But in purposefully getting worse there is a guarantee you’re worse.

 

[Krangodnzr]

This team just had the third pick in the draft. It already “REALLY sucked.”

With 100 games lost to injuries.

Making it worse means that much more digging outta a hole to get back to relevancy.

If you think it's hard to find Murphy and Allen level talents...

I'd gladly give them up for an additional real blue chip talent.

Purposefully getting worse is . . . getting worse. There’s no guarantee you get better.

In any given draft there are sometimes only 5 real blue chip talents. Adding two blue chip talents is more of a guarantee than anything else.

But in purposefully getting worse there is a guarantee you’re worse.

Being mediocre isn't the way either.