“I must comment on the Cardinals draft strategy. I thought the first 3 picks were excellent, but the last 4 were marginal. I know the head coach is defense-oriented, but 6 of 7 selections being on that side of the ball is IMO ridiculous, especially given all the good D talent we got in free agency. In Rd 4, Simon might be a good LB, but I was anticipating an IOL or WR. Still on the board were WRs Lane, Royals, Ayomanor, and Horton—all fast with reasonable or better height. On the OL were Mbow, Frazier, and Slater — all quite highly rated. Then, they trade back 22 spots in the 5th to add a 6th rounder — bad deal IMO. I know you’ll disagree, but hey, a long-time fan has his opinion.”
Yes, you can have your opinion. Not sure I agree that you “must comment.” You literally don’t. If you want to send something in, fine. Normally, I try not to even take this kind of entry because you aren’t even asking questions. You want to vent, and that’s for message boards. This is not that.
But I am running with this, and in this case, I must comment on your comment. “Ridiculous” is pretty strong. I am going to assume, and correct me if I am wrong, you have not watched significant video of all these players nor have you spent any time with them or anyone that has worked with them, so other than having online scouting reports (those same reports that had, among other predictions, Will Johnson in the first round and Shadeur Sanders definitely before Day 3) you don’t really have much of a foundation to say what a guy like Mbow or Frazier will do in the NFL compared to Burke or Conner. (Neither do I, just so we are clear.)
They don’t trade back unless they are comfortable passing up on who they could’ve gotten either. So obviously there was not a love for Mbow or Slater or Frazier, all of whom went in that area. (Or at least, they didn’t project them to be better than Isaiah Adams and/or Royce Newman and/or Jake Curhan, who are already on the roster. And in the fifth round, that’s totally feasible.) Those guys also were *not* highly rated per se; most analysts felt the OL in this draft dropped noticeably after the first five or six guys.
Again, maybe one will prove pretty good. Maybe Burke won’t be that guy. There will be misses in this draft. That’s inevitable. But the Cardinals put months of work into this. Hey, just my opinion.