2020 Arizona Cardinals Off-Season

[11sanchez11]

 

[DirtyDez]

Gilbert re-signed even though his knee is toast.  Sounds like they’re gearing up for Isaiah Simmons or Derrick Brown.  

[HoboRocket]

17 hours ago, DirtyDez said:

Gilbert re-signed even though his knee is toast.  Sounds like they’re gearing up for Isaiah Simmons or Derrick Brown.  

I'm thrilled to have Marcus Gilbert back at that 3.5 million price tag. Honestly, that makes someone like Wirfs more appealing, where he's slot in at guard this year and then shift outside next year. Having Wirfs at guard and Lamont Gaillard as the starting center would make this offensive line rock solid while Gilbert is healthy. Gilbert's only played 12 out of the last 48 games, but he's fantastic when he plays. Not a sure thing, but worth it if he can play 8 games this year. 

Isaiah Simmons and Derrick Brown would be nice. Simmons probably wouldn't be in a great spot playing for Vance Joseph, though, and Brown would be good, but we have our starting interior on the D-Line, IMO, in Zach Allen, Corey Peters, and Jordan Phillips. 

I just want us to go BPA, but if it's two players with the same or very similar grades, I want to go OL. And we still should add two WRs this off-season with Byrd gone and Hakeem likely on the way out.

[N4L]

21 hours ago, DirtyDez said:

Gilbert re-signed even though his knee is toast.  Sounds like they’re gearing up for Isaiah Simmons or Derrick Brown.  

I'm still pissed you have DeAndre Hopkins AND #8 this off-season. I hope Simmons and brown are both gone by then lol 

[LuckyNumber11]

Gilbert I think just gives us the flexibility to go BPA. Going into the draft with only Justin Murray at right tackle might cause a reach. Murray and Gilbert gives you more room for BPA. I’d still like Brown most simply because I don’t think that we will get consistent production from Phillips and Allen on the DL, so being able to rotate Brown in would be ideal.

But I’m under the assumption that Simmons and Okudah likely won’t be there at 8. (Although it is starting to look more possible) 

[11sanchez11]

Wirfs gives up inside too easily too often. That is prob his biggest weakness. But w/ Kyler being the QB teams usually contain rush and have the outside guys maintain outside leverage. Which Wirfs is very good at. So having Kyler might help shore up Wirfs biggest weakness. 

But another weakness is he can be bad at picking up twists/stunts. He gets beat on the inside easily and then doesn't get to the wrap pass rusher. So teams could exploit his and one of Kyler's weaknesses (leaving the pocket too early) by doing a stunt. outside rusher gets inside pressure quickly and inside rusher chases down Kyler.

[HoboRocket]

Yay! The trade was processed and now we OFFICIALLY have Nuk!

[11sanchez11]

We need a RG. I think that is the biggest hole on offense. So Wirfs would make sense in case Gilbert gets hurt and Justin Murray doesn't turn out to be starter worthy. Can plug him in at RT if that is the case. But worst case, Murray turns out to be good and Wirfs is the RG of the future. Well worst case is that he isnt good lol. 

I still want Ceedee tho

[LuckyNumber11]

I believe Sweezy is back. Not that I'm saying that with a ton of confidence, but he had a solid year last year. Particularly in run blocking I remember him being rock solid. 

Right now we would trot out a line of Hump-Pugh-Cole-Sweezy-Murray/Gilbert. Which isn't bad, not good, but we've had a lot worse. I think Wirfs would make the most sense though. While I'd love to see us get Ceedee, I think we gotta go either OL or defense. 

[11sanchez11]

15 hours ago, LuckyNumber11 said:

I believe Sweezy is back. Not that I'm saying that with a ton of confidence, but he had a solid year last year. Particularly in run blocking I remember him being rock solid. 

Good run blocker, bad in pass pro. Plus he isn't a possible answer 2-3 years down the road, which is a possibility for all the other starters/possible starters 

[N4L]

On 4/16/2020 at 1:40 AM, 11sanchez11 said:

We need a RG. I think that is the biggest hole on offense. So Wirfs would make sense in case Gilbert gets hurt and Justin Murray doesn't turn out to be starter worthy. Can plug him in at RT if that is the case. But worst case, Murray turns out to be good and Wirfs is the RG of the future. Well worst case is that he isnt good lol. 

I still want Ceedee tho

this is exactly how a lot of 49ers fans feel. Wirfs could play RG right now and probably play T in the future.

Also, Ceedee would be great lol 

[HoboRocket]

Alright, so our additions this off-season include:

DeAndre Hopkins, WR

Devon Kennard, OLB

DeVondre Campbell, LB

Jordan Phillips, IDL

Isaiah Simmons, ILB

Josh Jones, OT

Leki Fotu, IDL

Rashard Lawrence, IDL

Evan Weaver, LB

Eno Benjamin, RB

 

I see two studs on that list in Nuk and Simmons. You have a couple potential impact starters in Kennard and Phillips. After that, there are a bunch of quality depth options that could contribute as starters and have an impact in Josh Jones, DeVondre Campbell, Leki Fotu, and Eno Benjamin. Lawrence and Weaver are JAGs, in my opinion. Totally should have targeted Bryce Hall in the fourth. Overall, though, this is an incredibly strong off-season.

What are your thoughts? @11sanchez11 @DirtyDez @LuckyNumber11 @x0x @Zalixar @Duoathome

[Duoathome]

On 5/24/2020 at 8:29 AM, HoboRocket said:

Alright, so our additions this off-season include:

DeAndre Hopkins, WR

Devon Kennard, OLB

DeVondre Campbell, LB

Jordan Phillips, IDL

Isaiah Simmons, ILB

Josh Jones, OT

Leki Fotu, IDL

Rashard Lawrence, IDL

Evan Weaver, LB

Eno Benjamin, RB

 

I see two studs on that list in Nuk and Simmons. You have a couple potential impact starters in Kennard and Phillips. After that, there are a bunch of quality depth options that could contribute as starters and have an impact in Josh Jones, DeVondre Campbell, Leki Fotu, and Eno Benjamin. Lawrence and Weaver are JAGs, in my opinion. Totally should have targeted Bryce Hall in the fourth. Overall, though, this is an incredibly strong off-season.

What are your thoughts? @11sanchez11 @DirtyDez @LuckyNumber11 @x0x @Zalixar @Duoathome

So I feel that nuk, Phillips, and Simmons will have the biggest impact. Phillips is coming off a string season and he says he’s ready to become an elite player with Corey Peters going down hill in his career Phillips might be a week one starter. And we already know how nuk and Simmons will do this year. 👍🏽

[LuckyNumber11]

Ultimately our defense is going to be very switchy. Lots of guys comfortable in coverage or to stay in the box and rush the passer. We might see a package of Chandler Jones, Devondre Campbell, Isaiah Simmons, and Devon Kennard at certain points in time, especially on passing downs. Obviously Jones will be rushing the passer, but the rest have the ability to cover or blitz. It's a defensive coordinator's wet dream to confuse an offense and we have an opportunity to confuse a lot of offenses with the personnel that we have. The biggest hope that I have is that Phillips is the real deal. If he can be talented enough to at least consistently win one on ones. That opens up the entire defense. The offense is going to score, its just a matter of the defense holding their own.

9-7 is my prediction. 

[HoboRocket]

On 5/30/2020 at 5:30 PM, LuckyNumber11 said:

Ultimately our defense is going to be very switchy. Lots of guys comfortable in coverage or to stay in the box and rush the passer. We might see a package of Chandler Jones, Devondre Campbell, Isaiah Simmons, and Devon Kennard at certain points in time, especially on passing downs. Obviously Jones will be rushing the passer, but the rest have the ability to cover or blitz. It's a defensive coordinator's wet dream to confuse an offense and we have an opportunity to confuse a lot of offenses with the personnel that we have. The biggest hope that I have is that Phillips is the real deal. If he can be talented enough to at least consistently win one on ones. That opens up the entire defense. The offense is going to score, its just a matter of the defense holding their own.

9-7 is my prediction. 

There's also the question of where Jordan Hicks fits in here. Over the course of his career, he's been very good in coverage, but got abused last year. He's still young, though, so I don't think age was a factor. There's the chance that 2019 was simply a down year, and he'll ALSO be able to provide stellar coverage on the inside. 

I am absolutely in love with the versatility of this LB corps, though. Kennard has consistently put up pass rusher production in a situation where he wasn't asked to rush the passer on an every-down basis. Campbell is a splash-play machine. He's had some incredible games, but he's also been invisible at times. Very similar to Rams LB Samson Ebukam, in my opinion. Simmons is obviously a coverage ace and a sideline-to-sideline predator. Jones, meanwhile, has quietly been the most productive pass-rusher in football for years, but has even-more-quietly been sneaky in coverage when Bettcher, Wilks, or Joseph have felt creative enough to put him there on occasion. If Hicks returns to form... This is how you slow down an NFC West offense. 

The Rams, 49ers, and Seahawks are all reliant upon the middle of the field in the passing game and the ability to run the football on offense. The Cardinals, 49ers, and Rams have all struggled at times on defense because they've been exploitable in the middle of the field. With the Rams, Ogletree, Barron, and Littleton were all liabilities in the ground game, and when they weren't on the field, you had guys like Jared Cook going off for 150 yards in one half. With the 49ers, the Rams and Cardinals both took advantage of their LB corps until this re-working that gave them the trio of Fred Warner, Kwon Alexander, and Dre Greenlaw. The Cardinals have been humiliated by the Rams' and 49ers' seam passing game in recent years, which is why they've invested so heavily on that area on defense. The Seahawks are the one team that has been somewhat consistent on slowing down these offenses, and that's with the loss of Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, Earl Thomas, Cliff Avril, Frank Clark, and Michael Bennett. Why haven't they been worse? Because they still have guys like Bobby Wagner and KJ Wright on the inside. It forces teams to look outside (which they've been able to do with some success, but not as much as they normally have). 

Isaiah Simmons truly was the perfect fit on defense. He's the answer to George Kittle. He's the answer to Cooper Kupp. He's the answer to the Seahawks' run game, with the added ability to spy and match Russell Wilson move for move.