It’s been almost five days since the game wherein our starting quarterback was supposed to define himself. Instead, the Arizona Cardinals played a nationally televised disaster against the Tennessee Titans and lost their second last preseason game 27-32. Everyone knows thereʼs a quarterback situation in the desert. In fact, itʼs been thirty-one months since Kurt Warner retired and we have not had a quarterback take the reigns.
Sure, weʼve had different quarterbacks bouncing around week after week yet every year it comes down to the same “quarterback carousel”.
As of Monday afternoon, the Cardinals were the only team in the NFL that had not announced their starting quarterback. Yes, the only one. And rookie Ryan Lindley is starting Thursday night against the Denver Broncos, with neither John Skelton nor Kevin Kolb expected to play.
One position is that Coach Ken Whisenhunt will determine his starter from this weekʼs practice, which leads me to believe it will be Kolb – as of last week he has outperformed Skelton in practice. Another position is that Coach Whiz actually knows who his starter is going to be but is not saying merely as strategy (or desperation…Iʼm not sure at this point, but Iʼm hoping itʼs Skelton starting on opening day).
After Levi Brownʼs potentially season-ending triceps injury, Iʼve come to the opinion that this whole quarterback issue has been compounded by a lack of depth and attention to their offensive line. Year after year the Cardinals have been focused on finding their franchise quarterback, but in the meantime they have lost sight of the importance of strengthening their offensive line. At this point the O-line is a complete disaster. I heard a statistic on Arizonaʼs KTAR Sports 620 with Dave Burns and John Gambadoro that the Cardinals are one of only two teams in the entire NFL who have not drafted an offensive lineman in the first three rounds in the last five years. Say what? No wonder we donʼt have a quarterback stepping up and taking care of business. How can he do that when there is no substantially skilled depth of protection to stop him from getting killed? This mess is over five years in the making and the result is very painful to watch.
The only remedy I see for the offense this season is that the Cardinals have to run, run, run the ball. We need Beanie Wells to be healthy, we need Ryan Williams to be healthy, we need all the running backs to carry the weight of this team and do what is atypical in a pass-happy NFL. It may not be whatʼs popular but the Cardinals donʼt usually do things like the rest of the teams in the league. Regardless of what happens over the next 11 days, our flights are booked and weʼre ready to make lots of noise in the Birdʼs Nest when the Cardinals face the Seattle Seahawks on September 9th. We do this together! Birdgang4Life!
-Amber Boskers
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