NFL Draft Grades have been handed down from on high for the Arizona Cardinals, and in hindsight I shouldn't have let John Skelton proctor the exam—he's given them something called an "A+++++++". The Cardinals' top pick, cornerback and consensus top-player-in-the-draft Patrick Peterson, is a great example of drafting the best player available, and I don't think there were many better options for the No. 5 pick. Their second and third round picks leave a little more in doubt.
↵Ryan Williams is not a quarterback and does not know how to hit a quarterback. That is, so far as I can tell, the primary knock on the Cardinals' second round pick, which says, among other things, that they're not especially happy with Tim Hightower and Beanie Wells. With defensive end Da'Quan Bowers and quarterback Ryan Mallett still on the board the Cardinals pointedly avoided their two perceived positions of need to make this happen.
↵In the third round the Cardinals drafted tight end Robert Housler, which only thickened the plot—it's taken on a kind of brothy consistency by now. Housler is considered a significant reach by the powers that be, but Ken Whisenhunt is not a conventional football mind.
↵It's hard to knock a draft that begins with Patrick Peterson, but as an impartial observer I'm not sure I get the second and third round picks here. I'll give this one a B-, with a reevaluation to follow at the end of the year.
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