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Fantasy Blitz - FANTASY FOCUS: ARIZONA CARDINALS
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Posted On: 5/13/06
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Our free agent focus this week is the Arizona Cardinals. You all know the joke, the cardinal rule if you will, that in fantasy football you never draft any Cardinals. The Cardinals are the Chicago Cubs of football. They have not won a championship since 1947. In fantasy circles, they have not had a potent offensive team since the Neil Lomax, OJ Anderson, Roy Green, JT Smith days and those were short lived.
Is that finally changing? There are signs that it already has.
The Cardinals led the league in passing last year with 4,437 yards. Kurt Warner had over 2,700 yards while attempting 59% of the Cardinals’ passes last year.
The Cardinals drafted Matt Leinart. Head Coach Denny Green has gone on record, saying that the only way Leinart plays this year is if Warner gets hurt. As any fantasy player knows, Warner getting hurt is a given. Leinart will get plenty of snaps and some starts this year. The key for the Cardinals is that if Warner goes down, will Leinart be an upgrade from Josh McCown, Warner’s back up last year.
For fantasy players this only raises the value of the best starting wide receiver pair in the NFL, Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin. They combined for 205 receptions, 2,800 yards and 17 touchdowns. Fitzgerald grades higher on our board at this time than Boldin, due to his size. Both should be in everyone’s top ten wide receiver list this year.
The addition of Leinart through the draft is not the biggest factor of the increased value of Fitzgerald and Boldin. Credit that to the free agent signing of Edgerrin James. James brings with him 75 career touchdowns, with thirteen coming last year. The Cardinals run offense was hardly productive last year. Marcel Shipp led the team with 451 yards. On the surface it would appear the offensive line had a difficult time run blocking, but Green insisted that it was his running backs that were to blame last year, not the line. The Cardinals did upgrade their depth in the offensive line by signing guard Milford Brown from Houston, and they retained two of their own free agents, center Shawn Lynch and offensive tackle Reggie Wells.
Fitzgerald and Boldin should flourish even more with a major threat at running back in James. Defenses last year would drop eight men into coverage against the Cardinals on first down. Those days are over!
Due to the perception that no running back does well in Arizona, James’ value on the draft board will go down. This will help fantasy players enjoy the best depth at running back that we have seen in many years.
This is the year to break the Cardinal rule! Do not be surprised to see James, Boldin and Fitzgerald all gone by round three. When was the last time three Cardinals were gone that early?
Probably never!
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