The Arizona Cardinals Quality of the O-Line

Draft:

I (like the millions of worldwide fans) watched the College National Championship this year, and came out impressed with the resilience that the Clemson offense displayed against a top team like Alabama. The most consistent piece on the Clemson offensive line? Eric Mac Lain, a redshirt senior that isn’t very close to the limelight because of the amount of talent that embodied the Clemson offense. I like the toughness of Mac Lain, he displays a grittiness that is needed to be in an NFL frontline. He plays through the whistle, shows an unbelievable toughness, and could be a starting center, in my opinion.

The great part of drafting an offensive lineman is that you get to mold the offensive lineman into what you want. That can also be a bad thing, as it could take quite a while to get the lineman to learn specific concepts and routine blocking assignments. We already learned the hard way, Jonathan Cooper took too long to develop into the Arizona Cardinals system, but it’s not too late for him to be a starter in this system. A lot of the offensive lineman in this draft are from a spread attack (including Mac Lain), not really developed in pull blocking or second level blocking.

Here are some draftable guards:

Cody Whitehair – OG – Kansas State (1st round)
Ryan Kelly – C – Alabama (1st round)
Nick Martin – C – Notre Dame (1st-2nd round)
Vadal Alexander – OG – Louisiana State (1st-2nd round)
Spencer Drango – OG – Baylor (2nd round)
Landon Turner – OG – North Carolina (2nd-3rd round)
Joshua Garnett – OG – Stanford (2nd-3rd round)
Jack Allen – C – Michigan State (3rd round)
Christian Westerman – OG – Arizona Cardinals (3rd round)
Sebastian Tretola – OG – Arkansas (3rd-4th round)
Max Tuerk – C – Southern California (3rd-4th round)
Evan Boehm – C – Missouri (3rd-4th round)
Aaron Neary – OG/C – Eastern Washington (3rd-4th round)
Connor McGovern – OG/C – Missouri (3rd-4th round)
Denver Kirkland – OG – Arkansas (4th round)
Isaac Seumalo – OG/C – Oregon State (4th-5th round)
Charles Vaillancourt – OG – Laval (4th-5th round)

I think the most likely scenario, as the Cardinals would really benefit in, is developing a mid-round guard or center and make him a starter overtime. The Arizona Cardinals could actually be in an interesting position, where they could develop while they have guys like Jared Veldheer and Mike Iupati under contract, and prepare for the deep future of those guys leaving. I don’t like to think about it, but the Cardinals need to keep a young stock of offensive lineman around in the meantime. I like this stock of young guys, maybe we don’t get any of them, but they have some developmental elements.

Estimated O-Line:

LT – 1. Jared Veldheer
LG – 1. Mike Iupati 2. John Fullington
C – 1. Jonathan Cooper 2. A.Q. Shipley
RG – 1. Earl Watford 2. Aaron Neary (4th round)
RT – 1. D.J. Humphries 2. Taylor Fallin (undrafted)