The Arizona Cardinals’ Quarterback Battle is Lose-Lose

Matt Leinart lost his job as the Arizona Cardinals’ starting quarterback to Kurt Warner a couple of different times. This year it’s Matt Leinart’s team, and there’s no future Hall-of-Famer breathing down his neck, threatening to take his spot.

This is very, very bad news for the Cardinals.

It’s only the preseason, but coach Ken Whisenhunt and the Cards are getting a major reality check. With Warner gone, their offense lacks necessary potency. It looks like they’re going to struggle to move the ball all season with Leinart running the show.

In defense of Matt Leinart, he’s actually looked decent in his (very) limited preseason action. He played three series in each of their two games (the first against the Houston Texans, the second against the Tennessee Titans), generally playing against the first-team defense. Across the two games he went 10/13, for a solid QB rating of 90.9.

Unfortunately, it didn’t yield any results. He didn’t throw any interceptions, but nor did he have any touchdowns—and the best outcome of a drive was a missed 50-yard field goal by Jay Feely. Each of his three drives in yesterday’s game against Tennessee went three-and-out.

Conspicuously missing from Leinart’s game thus far is the leadership that must come from a franchise quarterback. That’s why we can look at his rather-good preseason numbers and still call his performance a failure: because at no point did he have good numbers when it mattered. Completing passes from the safety of your own 20-yard line is important, but Leinart’s inability to put the team in position to score is worrisome—even if it’s just in six preseason drives. The Cardinals are used to, in Warner, having a signal-caller who could take the team on his back and will them into the end zone. Matt Leinart has never been that guy in the NFL.

The Cardinals have been hoping since taking him tenth in the 2006 draft that Leinart would become that guy. So far his real-game performances have lacked the shine they had at USC—he hasn’t thrown 100 passes in a season since 2007, when his career TD and INT numbers totalled 13 and 16, respectively.

But that was the young Matt Leinart. It’s hard to believe that it’s already his fifth year in the league, but in that time he’s gotten everything a young quarterback could ask for: some early playing experience plus the ability to learn on the bench behind one of the best. If he’s going to come to fruition, it needs to be now—both for the Cardinals and for his own career.

Ready to take over the reins should Leinart falter is one-time Pro Bowler Derek Anderson. It seems appropriate to refer to him as a one-time Pro Bowler, because here’s a guy who literally had one good season and has been completely unable to replicate it. His 2007 sophomore campaign boasted 29 TDs to only 19 INTs en route to a 82.5 passer rating for the season.

It’s been ugly since. His rating dropped to 66.5 in 2008, and then a basement-dwelling 42.1 last season.

The Cardinals are essentially going with Leinart as a gesture of loyalty here, as Anderson has at least once proven he can play the position even if he hasn’t done in well in a couple years. The bad news is that Anderson and Leinart have a little too much in common; namely, the propensity to be a disappointment.

Anderson has also been underwhelming the preseason games. He went a combined 24/41 against the Texans and Titans, with one touchdown and two picks (all of which came against Houston). Unfortuntely for the Cardinals, it seems like his best years (or year, rather) are behind him.

Faring somewhat better in the exhibition action have been Arizona’s two rookie quarterbacks, John Skelton out of Fordham and Max Hall out of BYU. Skelton went 6/7 for 84 yards against the Texans and passed for a touchdown, while Hall went 7/15 for 101 yards and a touchdown of his own against the Titans.

The rookies tended to play against the second- and third-string defenses, but the Cardinals must have been pleased with the performance. Skelton has a strong arm and raw talent. Hall jumped right into the Cardinals’ system and has been mentioned by coaches as being the most accurate of all four quarterbacks on the roster.

But ultimately the quarterback battle, if it called be called one, is between Leinart and Anderson. The winner gets a prize not everyone would want: the helm of the post-Warner Cardinals offense that is transitioning from a pass-first, 28th-in-total-rushing aerial assault into an old school, rush-first power game. They’ll find themselves in a dichotomy of their own making: a team whose best talent is in the receiver corps (Larry Fitzgerald, Steve Breaston, Early Doucet), but who is forced to rely on the running game because of the quarterbacks’ own shortcomings.

And do the Cardinals win either way? While it doesn’t seem likely now, they do have a shot.

The Cardinals’ hopes of a third-straight division title, at this point, rest on Matt Leinart growing into his leadership role and ceasing to be a liability under center. He has support from the one-two rushing punch of Beanie Wells and Tim Hightower, who look like they’ll get plenty of touches this season to keep the ball out of Leinart’s hands. If the Cardinals can establish a run-heavy offense that then allows Leinart to reach his receivers after play-action, then they’ll put points on the board.

If they have to rely on Leinart to make plays, then they might not.

We’ll see. If he can’t carry the load, at least they have another mediocre quarterback to replace him.