Draft prospects Nick Fairley, Marcell Dareus won’t visit Arizona Cardinals
Mar 28, 2011, 7:14 PM | Updated: 8:23 pm
If a player’s college career is his resume, pre-draft visits are the NFL’s version of job interviews. They are a chance for teams to get to know a player and take a closer look at who they are, what they think and how they react under the pressure of answering questions that could cost them millions.
While it isn’t an exact science, these visits can be a very good indicator of who a team is and isn’t interested in. Like any good company, you wouldn’t think an NFL team would hire someone with a large salary without ‘kicking the tires’ at least once on a player and understanding who they are face-to-face. Then again, with each passing year the NFL Draft more and more resembles a high stakes game of poker where bluffing is just part of the territory.
Two names the Arizona Cardinals don’t appear to have much interest in based on this theory are Auburn defensive tackle Nick Fairley and Alabama defensive tackle Marcell Dareus.
According to a report in the Houston Chronicle, Fairley is set to visit with eight of the top 10 teams in next month’s NFL draft. One of those two teams is the Cards.
In a report on NFL.com, they have Dareus meeting with seven of the top 10 teams, once again with the Cards as one of the teams abstaining.
The news shouldn’t come as a complete surprise after the Cardinals spent their first round pick in 2010 on defensive tackle Dan Williams and have Darnell Dockett, Alan Branch and Gabe Watson on the roster but it does cross another few names of the list of possibilities for the team in Round 1.
For those of you keeping score at home, if you believe numerous reports, you can cross Fairley, Dareus and Cam Newton off the list of possible No. 5 picks for the Cards.
