The Cardinals cleared a starting spot for first-round pick Jonathan Cooper on Monday, releasing right guard Adam Snyder.
By releasing Snyder, the Cardinals admitted to making a costly mistake a year ago when they signed Snyder in free agency, paying him a $5 million signing bonus.
After the third day, the Cardinals looked back at all that they had drafted and saw that it was very good.
Of course, every other NFL team did the same thing when the draft ended Saturday. No one ever admits that the draft didn’t go the way they planned.
The Cardinals opened the third day of the draft by selecting Texas defensive end/outside linebacker Alex Okafor in the fourth round.
Okafor has ideal size (6-feet-4-inches, 264 pounds) for the position. He started for three years at Texas, recording 23 sacks, including 12.5 last season.
Jonathan Cooper’s size — 6 feet 2 and 311 pounds — contributed greatly to him becoming a millionaire Thursday when the Cardinals drafted the North Carolina guard with the seventh overall pick.
But being large wasn’t always so much fun. As a youngster, Cooper was so big that he couldn’t play Pop Warner.
In their history in Arizona, the second round has been pretty, and also pretty ugly for the Cardinals.
For every Calais Campbell (2008), who has become a dominant starter, there’s been a Cody Brown (2009), who couldn’t make it through one training camp.
At his introductory news conference in January, General Manager Steve Keim said two experiences in his Cardinals career would drive him in his new job.
One was confetti “sticking to my sweaty head,” after the Cardinals won the NFC title game in the 2008 season. The other came while watching the Cardinals lose to the Seahawks 58-0 last December in Seattle and “making a pact with myself that that will never happen again.”
There were plenty of new things displayed on Tuesday at the Cardinals’ first full speed practice of the off-season.
From the head coach (Bruce Arians), to the General Manager (Steve Keim), to the starting quarterback (Carson Palmer) to the single-man blocking sleds (World Sporting Goods).
Pressuring the opposing quarterback was not among the Cardinals’ myriad problems in 2012, yet it took a village of players to do the job.
Part of the reason for that was former coordinator Ray Horton’s system, which was predicated on bringing pressure from different directions. And part of the reason was out of necessity. The Cardinals lacked a premier outside pass rusher.
The Cardinals finished 31st among 32 teams in scoring in 2012, so it seems incongruous that they aren’t expected to select a player early in this draft who can score touchdowns.
But their recent draft history, their maneuverings this off-season and the talent in this draft class make it more likely the team will use their high picks on players who can block and tackle, not throw, catch and run.
Unlike many coaches, the Cardinals’ Bruce Arians doesn’t parse words when asked for his opinions.
This one, about his offensive line, is an example.
If Cardinals General Manager Steve Keim’s long-term plan is successful, the Cardinals rarely, if ever, will be as busy as they were this spring.
Keim and coach Bruce Arians spent the first off-season in their jobs churning the roster.
The Cardinals are scheduled to play only one game in prime time this year, which isn’t a surprise, given the team’s 5-11 record last year.
The NFL announced its regular-season schedule on Thursday, and the Cardinals will open against an NFC West foe, the Rams, in St. Louis on Sept. 8.
Cardinals General Manager Steve Keim and coach Bruce Arians declined to be definitive about much during a pre-draft press conference on Thursday.
But they did admit this much: Their top two selections, the seventh and 38th overall, will be expected to contribute this season.
The Cardinals have spent the past month or so cutting, signing and trading players. We won’t know until fall if they will be better for it, but all the activity has produced one benefit already.
We’ve heard a lot from Bruce Arians.
The Cardinals’ trade this week for quarterback Carson Palmer prompted comparisons, most of them unfavorable, to the last time they acquired a plus-30 on the downside of his career.
Apparently, most of us knew instantly the day Kurt Warner agreed to terms, March 6, 2005, that the Cardinals fortunes had taken a hairpin turn.
The Cardinals open the 2013 preseason at Green Bay and finish it at Denver. Between those contests will be home games against the Cowboys and Chargers.
NFL teams announced their preseason schedules on Thursday.
John Lott has a new boss, but the Cardinals strength and conditioning coach’s message to players was the same this week as when he arrived in Arizona in 2007.
“The bottom line is our expectations are high and the job is here in Tempe,” Lott said on Wednesday, the day after off-season workouts began. “I know it’s voluntary and I appreciate everyone being here.”
Cardinals inside linebacker Daryl Washington, one of the team’s brighter young stars, has been suspended for the first four games of the 2013 season for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy.
It’s unknown what Washington did to warrant the suspension.
The Cardinals have a new starting quarterback. Yes, another one.
And they hope that first sentence doesn’t have to be written again for several years.
Free agency in the NFL always has been similar to placing junk by the curb for loose-trash pickup and then shopping the neighbor’s yard sale.
But that’s been particularly true of the quarterback market this off-season, where one man’s trash has been another man’s Carson Palmer.
Quarterback Carson Palmer had dinner with Cardinals officials in Tempe on Monday night, according to NFL sources, which suggests that a trade could soon be completed.
The Cardinals have been talking to the Raiders and Palmer’s agent about a trade since last week.
With the possibility of trading for a new quarterback looming, the Cardinals parted on Monday with one of their existing ones.
The team released John Skelton, who started 17 games in three seasons with the team. That move could foreshadow the acquisition of Raiders quarterback Carson Palmer, a possible trade the Cardinals have been pursuing since last weekend.
The Cardinals are at least interested in exploring a trade with the Raiders for quarterback Carson Palmer, according to NFL sources.
Palmer’s status with the Raiders is in question after the team reportedly agreed to a trade with the Seahawks on Friday for backup quarterback Matt Flynn.
The Cardinals continued trade discussions Monday in an effort to obtain quarterback Carson Palmer from the Raiders.
Palmer, 33, would become the Cardinals starter, provided the deal can be pulled off, with Drew Stanton as the backup.
The Cardinals will open their off-season strength and conditioning program on Tuesday. I’ve included that and other important off-season dates below.First, a few words about the rules governing off-season dates. The collective bargaining agreement contains a whole section of what clubs can and can’t do during this period. I won’t going into all the detail. Players will be paid at least $175 for each workout they attend, provided they attend three of four in a given week. In weeks where there are less than four workouts, they will be paid for every workout they attend. The program is voluntary, except where noted below.
