Indianapolis has been able to figure it out, but can the Cardinals do the same? It’s clear that the entire house needs cleaning, not just the general manager, but the head coach too.
The Colts are 9-4, just a year after a dreadful 2-14 season. They brought out the broom and swept away everything including Payton Manning. They brought in a wiz-kid 40-year-old GM, used the number one overall pick to take Andrew Luck and have obviously been motivated by the health issues around head coach Chuck Pagano. In short, they’ve been the best story of the 2012 NFL season.
Meanwhile, the Cardinals have turned into the punching bag of jokes around the league. Sunday’s mind-numbing 58-0 loss at Seattle means that our hometown heroes haven’t been on the winning side of a handshake in over two months.
Ken Whisenhunt has outlived his coaching run in Arizona. It happens in this league, just look at Andy Reid in Philadelphia.The Super Bowl was a long, long time ago and he will have other opportunities to coach, write him the check and thank him for his time, but a new voice is needed. This shouldn’t become San Diego, where they refused to acknowledge Norv Turner needed to go and they have been mired in mediocrity.
The same goes for General Manager Rod Graves. Not drafting, finding and developing offensive lineman should be enough to remove him. The same goes at quarterback. How can Graves and Whisenhunt defend the lack of developing a long-term answer at quarterback. They put their faith in Kevin Kolb, but the organization can’t go through another offseason of the “who’s the quarterback going to be this week?” question.
The wild-card in all of this is how will the Bidwills respond? The right thing to do is make the tough call (which to me isn’t tough at all), and take a page out of what has happened in Indianapolis.
Write the check, make the announcement and turn the page.
Brad Cesmat
One-on-One with Larry Fitzgerald on tenth year of Fitz’s First Down Fund
