Arizona Cardinals Better Off With Ryan Lindley

As the 2015 season draws nearer and nearer, it is starting to become clearer and clearer that Logan Thomas is not viable for the third quarterback spot.

Second year signal caller Logan Thomas, once deemed the future starting quarterback of the Arizona Cardinals, is now facing the danger of losing his job as the third string quarterback. Thomas hasn’t been making the leaps an an NFL quarterback that Bruce Arians and the rest of the coaching staff has expected him to.

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The Arizona cardinals have brought in 2012 Mr. Irrelevant Chandler Harnish, and undrafted free agent Phillip Sims out of Winston-Salem State to compete with Thomas. It seems that these two quarterbacks also haven’t made any progress that has made them stand out to put themselves in the lead for the third quarterback job.

BA on the 3rd QB “They’ve all gotta step it up for us to have a third quarterback.” Logan Thomas reps were limited today in practice.
— Mike Jurecki (@mikejurecki) June 10, 2015

Arians not happy with any of 3 qbs competing for no. 3 no one has leaped ahead. Logan Thomas very few reps tuesday
— Kent Somers (@kentsomers) June 10, 2015

It appears that none of the candidates for the third quarterback spot are performing to the satisfaction of Arizona Cardinals’ head coach, Bruce Arians. With this in mind, the Arizona Cardinals should consider bringing back former “starting” quarterback Ryan Lindley.

You might ask why the Arizona Cardinals should consider bringing back the quarterback who led an offense to a total of 77 yards in a playoff game? (Which also happened to be the lowest total in NFL playoff history.)

In Lindley’s defense, he was put in an unfair position during the 2014-15 season. He spent 10 weeks on the San Diego Chargers practice squad, and was brought in at the last minute and was forced to relearn the entire playbook, and was later on forced into the starting lineup for 3 games, including a wild card match up against the Carolina Panthers.

Ryan Lindley was the unfortunate scapegoat in this stretch of games, with the only highlight being him throwing his first NFL touchdown pass. Which brings us back to the question, why should he get the third quarterback spot?

Lindley now has a great understanding of the playbook, and possibly even a better understanding than Thomas, Harnish and Sims. Lindley also has real game experience, where he has played in 9 games to go along with 6 starts. Any NFL head coach will tell you that real game action is much more valuable than practice reps. Though he performed poorly in most of his starts, this can prove to be a benefit for the Arizona Cardinals coaching staff since they’ll get a clear picture of what Ryan Lindley needs to work on.

Bruce Arians should have a general idea as to what he has in Ryan Lindley, and is still possibly unsure what he has in Thomas, Harnish and Sims. By knowing what he has in Lindley, he can use the time being spent on observing the Thomas and co. helping Lindley overcome his limits to turn him into a viable NFL quarterback.

Though unlikely, the Arizona Cardinals should consider bringing Ryan Lindley in as the third quarterback.

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