For about two minutes Thursday night, it was a possibility. Johnny Football in Arizona.
When the Cardinals' first-round selection came up at No. 20, Johnny Manziel was still on the board, and the pre-draft discussion topic of taking a quarterback of the future briefly turned into a frenzied debate over one of the most contentious prospects in recent draft history.
Alas, the Cardinals traded out of their pick moments later, moving back to No. 27, and Manziel was taken by the Browns at No. 22.
Keim admitted that the uniquely skilled Manziel was tough to pass up but indicated that the Cardinals' front office and coaching staff simply didn't consider him to be a good fit.
"I think we all love the skill set; it's hard not to love," Keim said on The Doug and Wolf Show. "But we just didn't feel like he was a great fit for our organization, and I think that everybody in the organization has to be on board and feel good with the pick for it to work out, and we didn't feel that we needed to address that in that spot."
So that's that. With Manziel (and Blake Bortles, who went No. 3 overall to the Jaguars) headed elsewhere, the only uncertainty now is whether the Cardinals' quarterback of the future will be found somewhere else in this draft; Keim's "in that spot" remark would seem to leave some wiggle room for that possibility.
