Sports360AZ
Who knows if last year’s crop of quarterbacks – Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III and Russell Wilson – will be as good as the class of quarterbacks that came out in the 1983 NFL Draft.
That class included John Elway, Jim Kelly and Dan Marino.
Six quarterbacks were chosen in the first round of that draft, which is an unprecedented number of players in one position being drafted in one round.
Luck, Griffin III and Wilson were spectacular in their rookie seasons, which makes the 2013 NFL Draft a tough one to judge because each and every quarterback who’ll be chosen next week will be under a microscope (like they aren’t already), simply because they have so much to live up to, thanks to their predecessors.
This year’s draft does feature some very good quarterbacks in Geno Smith, Matt Barkley, Ryan Nassib, Mike Glennon, Matt Scott and E.J. Manuel, just to name a few.
Out of that group, the Cardinals have worked out Smith, Barkley and Glennon privately.
Whether or not Arizona looks to take a quarterback with the No. 7 pick, or any of their seven picks we’re not quite sure about. What is a sure thing is that head coach Bruce Arians likes what he sees in this QB class.
“I had made the statement about ‘wow’ factor, but I really do believe that there are four or five quarterbacks in this draft that are gonna play for a long time,” Arians said.
For this group of young men, it’s not their fault that they have to follow such a talented class of quarterbacks as the 2012 class brought in, but it is what it is.
“That’s not real fair sometimes,” Arians said. “It’s like the ’84 class after the ’83 class, it’s like ‘whoa.'”
Each of these incoming quarterbacks brings a certain set of talents and a skill set which should serve their individual teams well, otherwise they wouldn’t even be on team’s draft boards.
General manager Steve Keim alluded to the team “shopping for [its] groceries” in free agency, while “grabbing” the best available players in the draft. Since we’re talking quarterbacks, the groceries in this case would be Carson Palmer and Drew Stanton, who Arizona landed in their free-agency frenzy.
Only time will tell if the Cardinals do make a move and draft a quarterback, which would make him the fifth QB on the roster.
No matter which way they go, at least at this point, the Cardinals are set and good where they are.
“I think we’ve positioned ourselves pretty well over the past few months, where we can be selective about positions we need to go for in the draft and the decisions we have to make,” Keim said.
“We feel pretty confident that the way our [draft] board is gonna be set, that, in our minds, the best player available is gonna be the one taken,” Keim added.
