ESPN analyst says Cardinals need to form their own identity
Oct 20, 2011, 8:20 PM | Updated: 9:57 pm
The idea of turning the Arizona Cardinals into Pittsburgh
West has been around ever since the team hired Ken
Whisenhunt to be head coach.
Whether it was putting them on the coaching staff or
signing some in free agency, the Cardinals sideline is
littered with former Steelers.
ESPN NFL analyst Ron Jaworski, as a guest on Arizona
Sports 620’s Burns and Gambo, said trying to be the
Steelers is the wrong way to go for the Cardinals.
“I think it’s impossible to replicate another
organization, I think you have to be yourself, develop
your own formulas,” Jaworski said. “Not only from an on
the field aspect, but also how you’re going to run your
personnel department, how you’re going to run your
organization.”
Jaworski said it makes sense that teams would look at a
successful franchise like Pittsburgh and want to be like
them, but that they won’t do so by copying the black and
gold.
“There are very few people that run their organizations
like the Pittsburgh Steelers,” he said. “They’ve been
doing this for 50 years — not only just the last 10 years
— and they have that profile of what they want to do.
“I think each individual team must develop their own
profile.”
The Cardinals’ profile is still being put together, but if
the idea has been to truly become the Steelers of the West
they are not only failing, but probably participating in
an exercise of futility.
