Looking At Arizona Drafts Over the Last 20 Years - Round 4

Sorry, fell behind there. Honestly, by this point, it's going to be hard to pick a "worst". So many 4th round picks don't pan out.

Round 4: (20) - Perry Carter, John Reese, Terry Irving, Aaron Graham, Chris Dishman, Michael Pittman, Joel Mackovicka, David Barrett, Bill Gramatica, Marcus Bell, Nate Dwyer, Alex Stepanovich, Gabe Watson, Kenny Iwebema, Greg Toler, O'Brien Schofield, Sam Acho, Bobby Massie, Alex Okafor, Earl Watford

Best: Sam Acho. Honorable mention: Dishman, Graham

Worst: Gramatica. Dishonorable mention: Dwyer, Reese, Makovicka, Iwebema

Yes, the Cardinals drafted a kicker with a 4th round pick. A Gramatica, no less. Just not the good Gramatica. Instead, they picked the one who blew out his knee jumping around celebrating a first quarter field goal. That gets worst pick just on principle. Dwyer never played a game, Reese only five. Iwebema played in 31 games, but had almost no impact. As for Makovicka, that's a more emotional selection.

They've drafted 6 offensive linemen in those 20 picks. They've only drafted 7 offensive linemen in the first 3 rounds combined over the same time period. Which probably explains a lot about their struggles in that area over the last 20 years. Of course, the best of the early round picks was probably Rich Brahm, who never even played for them. That or Leonard Davis. I'm not sure who's the best of the 4th rounders. Stepanovich, maybe.

I was surprised that Arizona had parted company with 2010 and 2009's selection, Schofield and Toler, but both are still in the league, suggesting they're still useful players. But they haven't been that great. Pittman had a pretty decent career outside of Arizona. Not as good as Thomas Jones, but Pittman was better in Arizona. I don't remember the Joel Makovicka era fondly. He was the guy arizona drafted because they were too cheap to keep Larry Centers, and because they thought they could switch to a power running game. Because some Nebraska fullback was going to compensate for the overall awfulness of the offensive line.

I selected Acho because he's been the most productive for the amount of time he's actually been on the time. The guys with roughly similar levels of value, did so in a lot more playing time than Acho. he's at 35 games, Stepanovich played 46, Dishman had over 90 games and almost 60 starts, Graham 62 games and 40 starts.