ESPN: Rival executives question Cardinals’ offseason moves
Apr 5, 2019, 7:00 AM | Updated: 10:43 am
Arizona Cardinals' Jordan Hicks speaks after he was introduced at an NFL football news conference, Friday, March 15, 2019, in Tempe, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York)
(AP Photo/Matt York)
When looking at the moves that the Cardinals made this offseason, many people deemed them to be a success. According to some higher-ups around the league, however, this may not be the case.
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In an article done by ESPN, executives from around the league anonymously offered their opinions on how other teams, including the Cardinals, fared this offseason.
Many of them questioned the Cardinals’ strategy going in, and pointed to the team’s quick signings of the recently released Robert Alford, Charles Clay and Brooks Reed as reasons why.
The Cardinals scooped up all three quickly after their releases in February. Execs around the league were not sure why.
“Arizona was weird,” one of them said. “They started signing all these players that were getting cut, like the day after they were getting cut, and spending money with it, too. It was like, ‘Why do you need to do that?'”
These executives thought that the Cardinals were trying to avoid giving up compensatory draft picks by signing players that didn’t require them, and were surprised to see them jump head-first into unrestricted free agency soon after.
“Looking at their list of signings, I can’t tell you what they are doing,” an exec from a playoff team said.
Multiple executives saw signings such as Jordan Hicks, Terrell Suggs and J.R. Sweezy to be high-risk because of the fact that all of them come with various different concerns.
A longtime evaluator noted that Arizona invested $43 million in guaranteed money on 15 veteran signings last year. Most carried red flags for age, injuries or other factors.
“It looks like they are looking at players for what they have done and not evaluating what they think they are going to do,” this evaluator said. “Alford has been a starter. Suggs has been a starter. Sweezy has been a starter.”
The signings of Hicks, Suggs, Sweezy and Alford all look to be solid from a performance standpoint, but as the executives pointed out, they are all not without their flaws. Health will be the main concern regarding all of them, but they should be able to provide an upgrade over last year’s group if they can stay on the field.
