ARIZONA CARDINALS

Seeing Stars: Grading the Arizona Cardinals’ ST situation

Jul 29, 2015, 3:05 PM | Updated: 4:08 pm

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The Arizona Cardinals won 11 games in 2014, and if not for an incredible amount of injuries very well could have had an even more successful season.

Look around, though, and you’ll see varied opinions on how they will fare in 2015. Some view them as a contender, a team that will compete for a Super Bowl if it can have a little luck in the health department. Others believe last year was a bit of a fluke, that they are destined to take a step back.

As training camp nears, we thought it would be a good idea to take a look at the team on a position-by-position basis, grading each group on a five-star scale.

So, how does the team look?


 

Chandler Catanzaro (K), Dave Zastudil (P), Drew Butler (P), Mike Leach (LS)

Grade: 4.25 stars

Last year during training camp, one of the most fun (and difficult, really) battles to watch was that between veteran Jay Feely and rookie Chandler Catanzaro for the team’s job at kicker. There figures to be no such competition at either of the kicker spots this year.

Catanzaro not only won the job, but went on to secure his old on it with an incredibly successful season. He made his first 17 field goal attempts — giving him a tie for the NFL record for most consecutive field goals made to begin a career — and finished the season connecting on 29-of-33 attempts as well as all 27 of his PATs. The rookie was 2-of-3 from beyond 50 yards, 10-of-11 from 40 to 49 yards and 12-of-14 from 30 to 39 yards out. Perhaps even as important, he did a nice job on kickoffs, notching touchbacks on 38 of 76 tries. His performance was so solid, the Cardinals haven’t bothered to so much as even look at another kicker.

The same technically cannot be said at punter, though there isn’t likely to be much in the way of competition there, either. Assuming he’s healthy, the job will assuredly belong to veteran Dave Zastudil, who was limited to just two games last year due to injury but is more than proven as one of the best punters in the NFL. In 2013, he placed 35 of 78 attempts inside the opponent’s 20-yard line while putting just six into the end zone for touchbacks.

However, if for some reason Zastudil is not healthy or struggles, Drew Butler — who was with the team most of last season — will be around to try and earn the job. The 26-year-old was far from great last season, sure, but he’s remembered as being plenty worse due to having a couple of punts blocked. Though he was not the quickest at getting his kicks away, that can also be attributed to shaky blocking in front of him. At any rate, Butler put 34 of his 79 punts inside the 20 and had touchbacks on just five kicks.

Now, neither Catanzaro nor Zastudil or Butler don’t get a chance to do their jobs without the consistency of long snapper Mike Leach, who probably hopes you don’t even realize he’s on the roster. Really, the only time anyone thinks of the long snapper is if he misfires on one, so the more anonymous Leach remains the better.

As far as the return game goes, rookie J.J. Nelson figures to get the first crack at kickoffs while Patrick Peterson may get back to returning punts. Returns have been a sore spot for the Cardinals the last couple years, and there’s no doubt the team would like to get more from that part of the team. In terms of kickers, though, they’re in good shape.

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