April 5, 2013
In Carson Palmer -- whom coach Bruce Arians described as "our starter"
earlier this week at Palmer's introductory press conference -- the Cardinals have their quarterback.
Their quarterback for now, anyway.
Palmer, 33,
negotiated with the team a two-year deal along with a club option for
2015, and the only other quarterbacks on the roster are backup Drew
Stanton -- a six-year veteran who hasn't thrown a pass in the past two
seasons -- along with journeyman veteran Brian Hoyer and second-year pro
Ryan Lindley. Not a franchise quarterback among them,
right?
So it remains plausible that the Cardinals
would consider selecting a quarterback of the future at some point early
in the upcoming draft, and that makes this tweet Thursday from ESPN NFL
reporter Adam Schefter interesting and
noteworthy:
To be clear, Barkley would
be an unlikely pick at No. 7 overall, where the Cardinals select in the
first round; actually, the consensus among FOXSports.com
draft guru Peter Schrager and ESPN experts Mel
Kiper and Todd McShay is that Barkley won't go in the first round at all.
Should those projections turn out to be accurate, the private workout
would presumably give the Cards the insight to know whether Barkley, the
four-year USC starter, would be worth taking in Round 2 (at No. 38
overall) and developing for the future.
It should be
noted that Barkley isn't the only QB the Cardinals are known to be
interested in, as reports
surfaced last week that the team worked out former
North Carolina State quarterback Mike Glennon in Raleigh.
-- Matt Swartz
