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School rules dictate Taylor will have to wait

Fifth-round pick Stepfan Taylor will be at the Cardinals’ rookie minicamp this weekend. All the rookies will. But the NFL rule that prohibits rookies from taking part in addition offseason work until their school has held final exams — regardless of whether the player is actually attending school or not (because many players leave school to prep for the NFL) — means Taylor, a Stanford product, won’t be around for much else.

Stanford isn’t scheduled to have final exams end until June 12. That happens to be the second day of the Cardinals’ mandatory minicamp at the end of the full team offseason work. There will be a final practice the next day. Rookies will likely stay around the facility beyond that (they usually do as the vets disperse for the rest of their offseason) but it’s not the same as the OTAs and minicamp.

The Cards do have a couple other rookies that could miss some time after rookie minicamp, but we’re talking one to three days in the other cases. The first OTAs are May 14-16, and there will be 10 total OTA days through June 6, before the June 11-13 minicamp.

Taylor does have a few things going for him. One, he’s from Stanford. I’m betting he’s pretty smart. Two, he’s a running back, and I’m guessing there isn’t as much needed to grasp to still be able to make an impact (and he still has all of training camp.) Finally, it’s not like he’s the first to ever go through this. Stanford products have to deal with this every year. Andrew Luck (below, handing off to Taylor in college) was gone from the Colts for more than a month, and that worked out pretty well for him and his team.

And who was there first-hand in Indy to see that play out? Bruce Arians.

– The rookies report tomorrow for physicals and other stuff. Draft picks Kevin Minter and Tyrann Mathieu will have a co-press conference at 2 p.m.

– No, as of now, nothing new to report on the Karlos Dansby situation. He did visit today and saw some of his old teammates. We’ll see if a contract can be worked out.

The Palmer-Stanton dynamic

Matthew Stafford. Tim Tebow. Andrew Luck. And now Carson Palmer.

If Drew Stanton was hoping his path would finally be cleared to be an NFL starter, well, another name is in front of him. Palmer is officially a Cardinal. He’ll collect $10 million guaranteed on a two-year contract that the Cardinals can easily shed after one year if need be. He gives the Cards a veteran signal-caller and their most proven QB since Kurt Warner. He steadies the offense even if he isn’t quite the guy he used to be. Palmer is in the building, attending meetings with his team and isn’t even behind, since today was the first day the players were going to be able to talk football with their new coaches anyway. Palmer is starting in the same place on the learning curve as Larry Fitzgerald, so that’s good.

We’ll have much more on Palmer later. This is about Stanton, the man who less than a month ago was hoping to have a shot at being a starter.

Stanton knows the NFL business better than anyone. (And in fact, apparently was told when he signed a Palmer arrival could indeed be in the Cards’ plans.) Stanton was a second-round pick in Detroit who missed his rookie season with knee surgery and fell behind in his second year as a Lion (behind Jon Kitna and Dan Orvlosky) when a thumb injury kept him out of the preseason. By 2009, Stafford arrived as savior and permanent starter. Stanton hoped he could at least be the backup with the Jets when he signed as a free agent last year — and with Mark Sanchez’s issues, maybe an opening at some point — but the Jets traded for Tebow five days later and, writing on the wall, Stanton asked to move on. The Jets sent him to Indy, where he was inevitably going to sit behind Luck.

Stanton hoped the combination of Bruce Arians and the Cards’ QB situation might be a little different. Arians talked him up but left the door ajar, the space within which Palmer now walks through. Palmer is going to be the starter. But Stanton will be the backup, and who knows, maybe Stanton will — through injury or otherwise — get a shot to start at some point.

Before 2012, a glance at 2013 opponents

Yes, yes, I know I am early. Way early. But as long as the info is out there — and while we still have a little bit before we get to training camp — here is a look at who the Cardinals’ opponents will be for the 2013 season.

HOME

– Indianapolis (Andrew Luck!)

– Carolina (Cam Newton!)

– Houston (Arian Foster.)

– Atlanta (Roddy White?)

– NFC North team that matches Cards’ spot in 2012 standings

– and of course, St. Louis, Seattle, San Francisco.

AWAY

– New Orleans

– Tampa Bay

– Jacksonville

– Tennessee

– NFC East team that matches Cards’ spot in 2012 standings

– and, of course, St. Louis, Seattle, San Francisco.

I was going to do a little analysis, but then I realized how foolish that was this far out.

The always bumpy quest to find a quarterback

Thanks to some obvious rhyming and a “can’t miss” quarterback prospect, the phrase “Suck for Luck” has become all the rage among the fan bases of poor teams this season in the NFL. It’s catchy to a point, although for all the reasons expected, it’s never true. Sure, there are going to be bad teams and someone indeed will be bad enough to end up with the No. 1 pick, but there are never players who are thinking about who their team might draft the following April. If you are on that bad of a team, sweeping changes usually come to the roster anyway — so there is no reason to do anything but play hard and try to win. If someone is seen dogging in on video, who’s going to want them going forward?

But what I really found interesting in the whole Luck talk was what former QB Phil Simms said about the 0-7 Colts and whether Peyton Manning will try to come back this season from his neck injury: “There is no way if Peyton Manning is given a clean bill of health — I’m going to go on that assumption — that he is going to let them draft Andrew Luck.” If Manning does come back late this season, he’s going to find a way to win a couple games, you’d think.

Even though Manning is one of the best quarterbacks ever and just signed a new contract, Simms pointed out the pressure that would come in Indy with Luck lurking on the bench. “In this day and age, even with Peyton Manning, people would be crying, ‘We’ve got to see Andrew Luck.’ “

To which I say, that’s absolutely true.

Think Favre-Rodgers, and how messy that got in Green Bay. Heck, more than a few eyebrows were raised in New England in April when the Patriots drafted Ryan Mallett, and that was with an extra third-round pick and not the first choice overall. I am reminded of an interview I had with Kurt Warner a couple weeks before the 2006 draft, when it seemed very possible the Cardinals would take a quarterback. Warner clearly did not want the Cards to take a QB. He had just been through the Eli Manning thing in New York a couple of years before. He wanted to play a few more years and get back to the Super Bowl.

“What’s the best way to do that?” he said. “Not to take a guy who is going to take over my job. Go get somebody who can help us next year.”

The Cards did take a QB, obviously, Matt Leinart (and they would have taken Jay Cutler had Leinart been gone). Warner wasn’t thrilled, and his concern about the pressure to play the rookie came to bear when Warner was bad in the first 3 1/2 games (fumbling 10 times!) and then being replaced. That doesn’t mean Manning will have the same problem. But it illustrates — especially knowing what we know now of how Warner/Leinart/post-Warner played out — how finding that good quarterback to carry you can be complicated. Even if you already have one of the greatest ever, yet still have ended up sucking for Luck.

About that draft position …

The subject grew in debate as the Cardinals’ losing streak grew — Wouldn’t it be better for the Cards just to lose out and nab the highest draft pick possible? Andrew Luck, for goodness sake!.

Well, we’ve heard coach Ken Whisenhunt keeps planning on winning. Players have their own reasons, but none point to losing as a good thing. Plus there is the schedule, which not only included the hapless Broncos visiting last weekend but a trip to reeling, one-win Carolina this weekend (I told you the Cards wouldn’t lose out).

Couple of points to make here. Talking to people, unless you can get QB Andrew Luck, there probably isn’t anyone else to be available that’s worth tanking for anyway. And the Cards were never getting Luck. The Panthers weren’t going to catch them in the standings, and I doubt the Bengals will fall behind (climb over?) the Cards. Yes, I think despite Clausen/Palmer, both the Bengals and Panthers would be all over Luck.

That’s assuming Luck comes out in the first place. Logically, you’d think he would. But he goes to Stanford, his family has money (his father Oliver was a NFL QB himself and now is West Virginia’s AD) and compared to most, he does have some reasons to stay (although he’ll never be drafted higher than first overall, and the risk to return is large — I’d think Jake Locker would have gone higher last year than this). There are also those who have heard rumblings that Jim Harbaugh won’t bail as Stanford’s coach. So there’s that.

As for the Cardinals, they have one major factor in their favor draft-pick-wise. Their strength of schedule is so poor that they will get the highest pick of any team(s) they tie with (because in the draft, ties are broken on strength of schedule; the team that played the weakest moves to the front). That’s assuming they don’t tie any NFC West brethren. Even then, the odd games on the sked — matchupes with incredibly disappointing Minnesota and Dallas — will help in that regard.