DAVE BURNS

Burns: Max Hall or Derek Anderson

Oct 25, 2010, 4:08 AM | Updated: Jan 14, 2011, 4:23 pm

Max or Derek?

It’s like going to the movies only to find everything is sold out except for 3D Jackass and Life As We Know It. A vegan at a steakhouse has better choices.

It’s a quarterback league and right now the Cardinals don’t have one.

The excuse-makers will come out in force following the Cardinals loss to the Seattle Seahawks. Yes, the turnovers choked the life out of this team. A slew of brainless penalties. Special teams were poor. The environment was challenging.

But if you take away the first four attempts for Derek Anderson, in which he went 4-4 for 67 yards, Anderson and Max Hall combined to go 8-29 for 65 yards. Even in an utterly winnable game like this one, you won’t win with numbers like that.

Before leaving after a blow to the head, Hall completed only four of his 16 attempts, with a pick, a fumble and a fashion-model-thin quarterback rating of 13.5. Three weeks ago, the overriding opinion was that Hall couldn’t get be any worse than Anderson. Sunday might have been evidence to the contrary. Everything about the moment looked like it was too big for him.

Anderson started his stint by leading the Cardinals to their first passing or rushing touchdown in 11 quarters. The magic (if that’s what you really want to call it) didn’t last very long.

Ultimately the problem with the Cardinals quarterbacks is the inability to deliver the football to the Cardinals best weapon. Larry Fitzgerald was targeted 10 times but only caught three for 30 yards. Not getting him the ball is like not having a fork to eat your filet. An absolute waste. Through six games he has 29 catches. I’m not bursting with confidence in either one of these guys to consistently get the ball to #11.

The Cardinals are caught in a hazy zone; by their very nature teams with rookie quarterbacks aren’t contenders and yet in this division the Cardinals are exactly that. So you stick with Hall (assuming he’s healthy) because he’s still an unknown commodity and you hope like mad he won’t face a more daunting task this year than the one he just faced. You’re not going to win with Anderson. You might with Hall. It’s really that simple.

Besides it’s not like the quarterback position is the only one Ken Whisenhunt has trust issues with. His look-guys-one-hand punt returner. His fumble prone running back (no not that one-the other one). Special teams play that was anything but special (excluding the Hyphen of course).

For the second straight game, the defense looked like they’re willing to bear the responsibility of keeping this team in games. For everyone’s sake, hopefully they will continue to play well because they have the same problem as the coaches do when deciding upon a quarterback.

An alarming lack of options.

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Burns: Max Hall or Derek Anderson