NFL.com: Arizona Cardinals’ best draft pick was David Johnson, worst was Rodney Gunter
May 15, 2015, 12:16 PM | Updated: 12:56 pm
You will never hear a team talk about its draft class in a negative way.
Every year, coaches and general managers from across the league extol the virtues of its haul, talking about how they found players who will make an impact, fill needs and/or surprise the so-called “experts.”
At the same time, everyone knows odds are not every player a team drafts will pan out and have a successful NFL career.
No one can be sure which rookies will produce and which will struggle, but NFL.com’s Chase Goodbread thinks he has an idea.
In a piece going over the best and worst 2015 draft picks for NFC West teams, he lists third-round choice David Johnson as the best and fourth-round pick Rodney Gunter as the worst.
For Johnson, a running back out of Northern Iowa, he writes:
Andre Ellington had about 250 touches last year — a lot for someone his size — and the Cardinals needed to add a back to trim his workload. Johnson will fill that role nicely and, like Ellington, he is excellent out of the backfield as a receiver. Johnson was outstanding at the Senior Bowl, and after Todd Gurley and Melvin Gordon, he belonged in the conversation as part of the next tier of RBs in the draft.
A three-down back, the 6-foot-1, 224-pound Johnson ran for 4,682 yards and 49 touchdowns in college, while also accumulating 1,734 yards and 14 scores as a receiver.
Cardinals coach Bruce Arians has often professed a desire to have a bigger back to complement Ellington, and Johnson may very well be that guy.
But for all the excitement over Johnson, Goodbread says the choice of Gunter was rather questionable.
The Cardinals not only picked a sleeper in the top half of the draft, they traded up to do so. Gunter is said to have freakish athletic skills and the versatility to play inside or outside, traits the Cardinals are obviously believers in. Gunter also assigned himself J.J. Watt-like potential, so he has at least as much confidence in himself as Arizona does. Coming from small-school competition, it won’t be a shock if he doesn’t pan out.
It’s understandable that there would be questions about the defensive lineman, as few have ever seen him play and no one has seen him match up against elite-level competition. But from the moment the Cardinals landed him they have not been bashful about their optimism over the former Delaware State Hornet’s future, and the story about how they discovered him could very well become the stuff of legend.
For both Johnson and Gunter, time will tell if Goodbread is right, wrong or something in between.
