Emotions are swirling. Arizona Cardinals fans have gone from relief to anticipation to resignation. We foolishly want all the head coaching candidates on our wish list to feel the same way about Arizona as we do:
It’s a fabulous place to live if you don’t expect too much from our NFL team.
Other thoughts from a riveting pigskin postseason:
— After feasting on college football for the past month, it’s clear to me that Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza is the only quarterback worthy of a first-round selection in the upcoming NFL Draft. I love Mississippi’s Trinidad Chambliss, but he’s too small, and the size of a quarterback is a lesson learned the hard way in Arizona. I also love Sam Leavitt as an NFL prospect, even if his time at ASU ended very poorly. Except he’s not available in the upcoming draft.
So:
Would the Raiders trade the No. 1 overall pick for Kyler Murray, the No. 4 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft (Marvin Harrison Jr.), the No. 3 pick in the 2025 NFL draft and a handful of later-round picks?
If not, we’re in a dangerous place.
— In Arizona, there is a bigger issue than finding a new coach. It’s uncovering the next franchise quarterback. The 2027 NFL draft will be stocked with potential game-changing franchise quarterbacks, which means the Cardinals would be best suited to tank the 2026 season entirely. Which means they might’ve fired Jonathan Gannon one year too early.
— If the Cardinals are shut out by their top coaching candidates, they need to find a diamond in the rough, just like the Suns did with Jordan Ott. But remember: the Suns uncovered Ott because they took a highly unconventional approach. Owner Mat Ishbia demanded a try-hard team that played basketball with great joy and intensity, a team that disrupted the NBA’s too-cool-for-school mentality. He leaned on general manager Brian Gregory, a college basketball lifer with very little NBA experience, to find a sincere, unjaded, savant-like coach to deliver something pure and unstained by cynicism. It worked.
If the Cardinals can’t get a proven commodity, GM Monti Ossenfort should take all the time he needs to uncover the next big thing.
— It’s time for college football to get rid of its silo mentality, where conferences argue and scheme against other conferences with no regard for their sport in general. Someone needs to take the reins of a lawless sport, and it starts with the SEC realizing they are nothing special. They are no longer America’s best conference. It was true when Alabama possessed the best football coach in history (Nick Saban). But now that payments are going through the front door and not under the table, now that every major Division I program is paying good money for their players, the SEC has been exposed as arrogant and overrated.
— I can’t get enough of Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti, whose team hasn’t lost a fumble since the 18th play of the season; whose wide receivers have dropped six passes all season. You will not find a better football coach in America at the moment. It’s similar to the Cardinals lucking into Bruce Arians, who became a head coach at age 60. But even more improbable.
— The NFL Divisional round of the playoffs features: three great defenses (Denver, Houston, Seattle); three NFC West teams (Seahawks, 49ers, Rams); two quarterbacks who are markedly better in the fourth quarter (Caleb Williams, Bo Nix); the top two MVP candidates (Matthew Stafford, Drake Maye); the best player in the sport (Josh Allen); and four games played in outdoor stadiums, the way football was meant to be played.
There will come a day when NFL greed will lead to 30 domed stadiums and two outliers (Buffalo, Green Bay). And it will be a sad day, indeed.
— Predictions: Bills over Broncos, 20-16; Seahawks over 49ers, 30-13; Texans over Patriots, 24-20; Rams over Bears, 28-17.
And in the College Football Playoff title game, Indiana scores a late touchdown to pull away from a slugfest with Miami, 35-24.
Reach Bickley at dbickley@arizonasports.com. Listen to Bickley & Marotta weekdays from 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station.
Follow @danbickley
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