Grades for NFL teams’ draft classes will vary. It all depends on whether someone feels there was value, talent and fit for the needs a team has. While Touchdown Wire’s Mark Schofield and Doug Farrar mostly liked what the Arizona Cardinals did with their seven selections in the draft, Draft Wire’s Luke Easterling was not a fan.
In his grades for all 32 NFL teams’ draft classes, he gives the Cardinals a C-minus.
Zaven Collins felt like a bit of a reach at No. 16 overall, and it gives the Cardinals back-to-back first-round picks spent on defenders with no clear-cut position fit at the next level. Rondale Moore will be fun to watch in this offense, but he was a luxury pick when there were talented prospects at bigger positions of need. Marco Wilson went a couple of rounds too early, but a couple of late-round bargains (Victor Dimukeje, James Wiggins) keeps this grade from the basement.
While Collins’ selection does feel like a little bit of a reach, pretty much everyone at that point was.
Moore isn’t a luxury pick. He is needed because Andy Isabella has not yet shown much and they need a fourth receiver to be reliable and productive when they go with ’10’ personnel.
What is most interesting is that Easterling feels Wilson went two rounds too early. The Cardinals feel that he is their biggest steal of the draft and that comes after trading up 24 spots to select him.
For many, Dimukeje was an odd pick, but for Easterling he is one of the better selections they made.
It goes to show that no one really knows what was good or not at this point.
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