sadly, we KNOW this won't happen. Bidwill's already come out and said they did more than enough in the offseason (going "all in" on an aging injury prone TE... who's been injury prone... the worst CB in the league last year... who's looked like the worst CB in the league this year... a mediocre G, who's looked like a mediocre G... a completely washed up, broken down out of position LBer who looks like a completely washed up, broken down out of position LBer) to put a good team on the field. I believe that statement means he actually thinks they did a good job in the off-season and most of the season's results are based strictly on coaching.
That's the diabolical genius of Rod Graves. He goes out and gets the players the coaching staff asks for, and then absolves himself of responsibility as long as the salary cap situation is solid. You can't fire him unless you decide that you need a stronger general manager, who is going to allow more conflict with the front office.
There was a good free agent signing in Jeff King. He's exceeded my expectations. Daryn Colledge has more or less met my expectations. Basically what you said, but I liked Jeff King, and Heap was kind of a bonus--I didn't get the impression that he was part of the plan.
The problem is that Whis likely identified Kolb as his guy and told Bidwill that this is the guy that we can win with. I think that's part of the reason he continues to blame the shortened offseason for our problems (and the guys under the Cards' payroll are repeating this endlessly). Is Kolb better than he's shown? Probably. I didn't expect him to be this bad. But is he a guy who's going to be a Top 10 QB? No way.
If the coaching staff told Bidwill that they could win with these guys, then the solution isn't to hold the coaching staff directly responsible, IMO. The solution is to stop allowing coaches to choose the groceries. Whis is right that his system does work, but it only works with Denny's players or a Pittsburgh talent evaluation system that has an insitutional memory that goes back at least two generations.
I just don't think we can take a step forward by empowering more coaches to choose their players. The step that I think they should take is get a talent evaluator into the General Manager's seat and let him identify good players. Talent is clearly declining year after year, and preaching patience with Patrick Peterson and Kevin Kolb don't solve that problem.
