While the Arizona Cardinals have a number of needs this offseason to improve the team, when it comes to the eighth overall pick in the NFL draft, most of the conversation has been about the offensive line and the receiver position. The majority of mock drafts focus on those positions.
Which is the better way to go?
NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah makes a case for a tackle.
One reason is because of the quality at receiver in this year’s draft.
Jeremiah, speaking on a conference call this week with reporters, said he has 27 receivers in this draft class with a draft grade in the first three rounds. He said there is an average of 31 receivers taken in the entire draft and the most every drafted was 35 in 2017.
“So this is a really phenomenal group of wideouts,” he said. “Not all those guys are going to go early. They’ll end up spreading throughout the draft. But it’s really a good group.”
Jeremiah believes the Cardinals are in a position to take care of their franchise quarterback.
“My kind of theory on that is when you really look at what the college game is doing and giving the NFL, it’s four, five wide receivers, oo it’s not a shock
when you look at the depth of these draft classes,” he said. “You see wide receivers and corners and then you see offensive line, it just doesn’t have that depth. Falls out right away, so protecting hasn’t been as important at the college level and we just haven’t seen as many quality offensive linemen.
“When you’ve got a young quarterback and you’re picking high enough to get
an impact starter to protect them for a decade I just think that trumps all your
other needs.”
Additionally, the Cardinals could use better talent on the offensive line to make the offense run the way Kliff Kingsbury would ideally like to run it.
“If they want to run the offense the way it was designed to be run, they have to get better up front,” he said. “And I just think when you look at Kingsbury, with a dynamic quarterback in Kyler Murray, they had to keep too many guys in protection last year. And they found a creative way to move the football.
“But that’s not what they want to do. That’s not what the offense is designed to do. But they couldn’t get more guys out in the route because they couldn’t protect.”
Whether it is Mekhi Becton, Andrew Thomas, Jedrick Wills or Tristan Wirfs, the case is made to go and get the top lineman talent because the talent at receiver is still impactful later.
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Ep. 258
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Ep. 257
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