John Clayton: You just don’t get excited about this year’s rookie QBs

For all we know, the Arizona Cardinals went into the NFL Scouting Combine interested in taking one of the quarterbacks with their first round pick.

But if that was indeed the case, they may be leaving with a different idea. Because, according to ESPN NFL insider John Clayton, no one really helped themselves over the weekend.

“I thought this was going to be one where one or two or three quarterbacks who have been working out for five, six weeks, testing everything and trying to get their games better, I thought somebody was going to light it up and nobody lit it up,” he told Arizona Sports 620’s Doug and Wolf Monday. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not going to go in the first round; it just means they’re going to go in a lower part of the first round.”

West Virginia’s Geno Smith, USC’s Matt Barkley, Arkansas’ Tyler Wilson, Florida State’s EJ Manuel, North Carolina State’s Mike Glennon, Syracuse’s Ryan Nassib and Tennessee’s Tyler Bray are all intriguing talents, as are Kansas State’s Collin Klein and Arizona’s Matt Scott.

The Cardinals, as we know, are picking seventh, which may be a bit high for a passer in this draft.

And all it takes is for one team to fall in love with a player and take him earlier than most think he should go for all the dominoes to start to fall.

Seemingly every year a team or two “reaches” for a signal caller earlier than most think they should, and there’s nothing saying new coach Bruce Arians and his staff won’t I.D. a player and make sure they get him.

“I still think it’s going to be two or three,” Clayton said of quarterbacks taken in the first round. “But you just don’t get excited about it because this group isn’t as good as the group in the last two years.”

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