11:26 Good morning Cardinal Fans. 34 minutes until the draft starts. We know Jake Long is going to Miami. Now the anticipation is who goes #2. ESPN just interviewed Matt Ryan, QB from Boston College. He thinks he’d be a good fit in Atlanta. If he doesn’t go there, look for maybe Baltimore.
11:40 – Ed Werder, ESPN, mentions possbility of Cowboys looking to trade for a WR. This includes Anquan Boldin. If the Cardinals are even thinking about giving Quan to the Cowboys, they’d better make sure they are getting ALOT in return. Personally, I’d be very dissapointed to see the Cardinals let him go – especially to the Cowchips!!
12:03 Jake Long goes first to Miami. No surprise here.
12:13 Chris Long goes to St. Louis. Looking forward to hearing Howie Long, his father, talk about him during NFC games on Fox this season.
12:18 Matt Ryan to Atlanta. Good for him. Let’s hope he’s not another Joey Harrington. Oakland on the clock.
12:45 – Oakland takes McFadden. Don’t blame them. KC takes Dorsey. Rumor they were going to trade away the pick for more picks, but Dorsey is too good to pass up. NY Jets take Vernon Gholston at #6. Jets fans rejoice everywhere!
12:54 BREAKING NEWS: We have our first trade of the draft. NE trades pick to New Orleans Saints. NO goes to So Cal again to get their first round guy. Maybe Pete Carroll is paying someone in the Bayou? Sedrick Ellis is a good pick. No word on what NE got in return. I’m thinking some cajun shrimp.
1:01 – Jacksonville trades up from #26. Huge move up. Didn’t see this coming, but it makes sense now that my friends at ESPN have explained why. Derrick Harvey, DE from Florida. WOW! I’d be jumping into the ocean right about now if I were a Jaguars fan. They traded up for him? I smell another Mario Williams.
1:09 – Cincy takes Keith Rivers, USC. The response from the Bengals Draft Party is priceless. They were so excited they had no response at all. They just sat there. Kind of like the response my wife got from me when she asked me to go change my 10 month old son’s dirty diaper.
1:23 – New England holds the Mayo! Sorry, I couldn’t resist. They take Jerod Mayo from Tennessee. Buffalo takes one corner I would have liked to have seen in Arizona — Leodis McKelvin from Troy. Denver is on the clock.
1:26 – Denver takes a Bronco. No, literally. Ryan Clady, OT from the Boise St. Broncos. First Bronco to go in the first round. Carolina on the clock.
1:30 – Carolina takes Jonathan Stewart from Oregon. Good! I’m glad. This means the Cardinals might be more apt to take a corner like I think they should. I’ve never been happier to see a top RB go to another team.
1:39 – uh oh. Chris Williams to Chicago. I thought for sure they’d go RB to give Benson a push. Now it gets interesting. If Detroit passes on Mendenhall – look for AZ to give him a look. I hope not, but I feel like it might go that way. Let’s see.
1:46 – Detroit trades pick. Amazing. I guess they didn’t feel like there was a top notch WR available this year?? KC takes Brandon Albert from Virginia. Arizona on the clock. I hope it’s a CB. Rodgers-Cromartie or Talib needs to be the guy. I’m afraid it could be Mendenhall from Illinois. Mendenhall is good, don’t get me wrong; however they really need help on defense.
1:56 – BREAKING NEWS: THE ARIZONA CARDINALS SELECT DOMINIQUE RODGERS-CROMARTIE, CB, TENNESSEE STATE. Outstanding! They filled a need rather than going with best available. They did take the best available corner in my mind. I liked Talib, but I didn’t think Rodgers-Cromartie would be available at this point. Even ESPN had the Cards going RB. This may not turn out to be the best first round player in Cardinals history, but most likely the smartest pick in the first round since moving to Arizona. Go Cards!
back from a break…..
3:23 – Let’s recap the picks since the Cards pick at #16. Detroit is Detroit. I don’t know what they were thinking at 17. It was nice to see Talib get into the top 20. I thought maybe Mike Jenkins would go to Tampa Bay. Jenkins found his way to Dallas though. Lucky him. My guy from Arizona, CB Antoine Cason went a little sooner than I thought he would, but he gets to go to a good team in San Diego. Now we wait to see what happens at #30. Green Bay just traded the pick to the Jets. Fans in New York are delirious. Hmm.
3:27 – Just saw a great sign in the audience. Jets can S-P-E-L-L. Can they P-I-C-K as well? Let’s see.
3:28 – Tight End Dustin Keller. I think I just heard NY Jets fans wallet’s getting tighter. Not exactly a gate draw. Only time will tell if he can help Pennington. This pick makes me feel like I did when I saw that scene in ‘The Replacements” when Keanu Reeves was replaced by the regular QB guy who crossed the picket line to come back in a pivital game. Your heart sank when Reeves was told he wasn’t going to play and kind of excited to see how the regular guy would fill out playing with the scabs, only to find out what we really knew would happen. Reeves came back to play in the 2nd half and win the game to send the team to the playoffs. Everything in this pick was there. Drama, predictability, and let down. NY created drama by moving up, predictable they’d go safe, and a let down when you knew it wouldn’t be as big a deal in the end, leaving a general feeling of malaise. J-E-T-S!!!
3:40 – We finally move to the 2nd round. 3 hours 40 minutes to complete the first round. I will be back later to recap the second round. Go Cards!!
5:00 – BREAKING NEWS: THE ARIZONA CARDINALS SELECT CALAIS CAMPBELL, DE, MIAMI. Great pick at 50. I had him going much earlier in a mock draft a month ago. I’m surprised he lasted this long.
DAY 2 – SUNDAY
7:00am – I can’t believe I got up for this. Ok, yes I can. My 10 month old was waiting for me to get him out of bed at 6:20 this morning. So, here we are, day 2 of the draft. I’ve swtiched from ESPN to NFL Network. ESPN’s coverage is starting to bug me. It all started when they failed to mention Arizona’s second round pick at all. They went to commerical during their pick, which is fine; however they didn’t recap the pick when they returned. All Chris Berman would say was “And Arizona just picked at 50, now at 51”. I was like what? Who was it?? I had to go to NFL Network to find out because the crawl on ESPN had started over at #1. Then this morning, I started out at ESPN. They went to commercial and missed three picks. NFL Network had continuous coverage and didn’t go to commerical until 7:19. It’s going fast this morning, so the Cardinals should be up soon at #81. Is this where they find a WR in the rough? Or do they continue to build their defense? RB could be a possibility too, but right now maybe finding someone to hit that 3rd WR slot or another player to shore up their defense would be smart.
7:25 – Earl Bennett, WR from Vandy was the last pick to the Bears. I personally don’t follow Commodore football, so I don’t know much about this guy. What I am finding out though is apparently the NFL Network hasn’t come across a player they don’t like yet. Descriptions such as “tough”, “winner”, “good foot work”. I’m waiting for someone to come out and say “Holy Crap, what were they thinking taking this loser?” Now that would be some NFL Draft Coverage Gold right there!
7:30 – ok good, a couple of negative comments on picks the NFL Network missed while on commercial. . “No explosion”, “Need to figure it out”, “Will miss 4-5 downs, that’s why they are picked in these rounds”. There we go – I love it. Now we are getting some honesty!
7:53 – BREAKING NEWS: THE ARIZONA CARDINALS SELECT EARLY DOUCET, WR, LSU. All morning I’ve been thinking that a WR could be going here. The Cardinals needed a WR to replace the loss of Bryant Johnson. I almost forgot Doucet was still available. I honestly thought he would have been drafted yesterday. I thought Mario Manningham might be the guy. Nevertheless, this is another smart pick by the Cardinals. So far, I give them a B+/A- grade. The Cardinals have done nothing so far that doesn’t make me excited for the start of training camp in three months.
9:42 BREAKING NEWS: THE ARIZONA CARDINALS SELECT KENNY IWEBEMA, DE, IOWA. I don’t know much about Iwebema, but the Cardinals are clearly addressing needs by selecting another DE. I know Iowa has been a decent team over the past couple of years, so I have to think the Cardinals are happy with this guy.
Scott Allen
AZScott