Cardinals Release Leinart

Yes, it's a post about something other than baseball.

The Arizona Cardinals cut Matt Leinart. I'm a bit surprised by that. I wasn't surprised that Whisenhunt would make Leinart earn the starting job. After all, he didn't draft Matt, Denny Green did, and Leinart hasn't impressed in the occasional playing opportunities he had the last two years. I hadn't heard much good about Leinart's performance in the preseason, but I wasn't hearing good things about much of anything on the team. The running game hadn't materialized, the offensive line was struggling, the defense was a huge question mark if only because of how poorly they played the end of last year, when Green Bay ran up the points in consecutive weeks, then new Orleans torched them.

But I don't play too close attention to the preseason. The results don't mean anything. The Rams beat the Patriots a couple weeks ago. Are the Rams better than New England? I highly doubt it. The Colts have gone 0-4 in the preseason in the last couple years. Doesn't seem to hamper them from winning double-digit games once the competitions count for something. So I was trying to remain positive, figuring it was an adjustment period, the team would get things sorted by Week 1, and if not, they play in the NFC West. The 49ers concerned me a bit, but I wasn't quaking at the sight of Pete Carroll coaching the Seahawks, and I wanted to see the Rams win more than 3 games in a season before I worried about them.

But apparently Leinart's been so bad Whisenhunt would rather take his chances with Derek Anderson and two rookies? Derek Anderson, the guy who couldn't hold off Brady Quinn to keep his starting job. I know Anderson has one more Pro Bowl selection than Leinart, but I keep coming back to Anderson playing so poorly, the Browns decided they were better off with Brady Quinn, who was terrible for them. At least Leinart originally lost his starting job to Kurt Warner, a quarterback who was actually good.

I read an idea that Arizona really wanted to trade Leinart, rather than release him, because if they had to cut him, he'd probably go straight to Seattle and Pete Carroll. I have no idea if that was any concern of the Arizona staff, it was something I read on a blog, probably just them spitballing. If it has some grain of truth, I'd hope it was one of those situations where they don't want him giving away all their plays to Seattle. Because if it was worry that he might play well and burn them, then why cut him in the first place? If it's possible for Pete Carroll to make Leinart a successful starting QB, it ought to be possible for Whisenhunt and his bunch.

Anyway, at this point, I'd rather the Cardinals looked into bringing back Josh McCown to be QB, than go with Anderson. Hell, I'd rather they tried to talk Jake Plummer out of retirement. Oh well, Anderson probably isn't the worst starting QB they've had since I've been a fan. That was probably Kent Graham in '97. Or maybe 800-year old Boomer Esiason the year before. Or 900-year old Dave Kreig the year before that.

The Cardinals also traded one of their starting guards, Reggie Wells, to Philly for a draft pick. I'm going to hope that was because Arizona feels they have astounding depth on their O-line. Astounding depth that is good. No doubt the Cardinals have had deep offensive lines consisting of mostly terrible players before, but that's not something to be excited about.

I used to read all the NFL preview mags I could get my hands on. SI, ESPN, Sporting News, two or three others. I'd read them, and especially in the first few Plummer years, and later, the Denny Green years, I'd get excited afterward. It sounded like the Cardinals were loaded, and they'd make a move. Outside of 1998, that never happened. Eventually, I started ignoring all of that. Now I've paid just enough attention to be worried before the season even starts. I'm not sure whether it's better to go in worried, or go in excited and then be crushed by reality. I guess I'll know by then end of the season. Really hoping the Cardinals figured something out to turn Anderson around.