Arizona Cardinals to drop John Skelton?

The Arizona Cardinals have been dead set on acquiring Carson Palmer to be their new starting quarterback after parting ways with Kevin Kolb, and Palmer would join a lengthy list of backups in Brian Hoyer, Drew Stanton, and John Skelton. According to the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, “Early indications are” that Skelton will be released after the Carson Palmer trade with the Oakland Raiders is complete. Rapoport writes that the Cardinals will “likely” release a quarterback once Palmer is added into the fold.

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That all makes sense, because the Cardinals would be crazy to trot out five quarterbacks on their roster next season. Skelton is definitely the “odd-man out”, because he is the least talented of those QBs. The 25-year-old Fordham product is better than Ryan Lindley, but the Cardinals are likely more willing to get rid of the strong-armed Skelton since Lindley had just one year under his belt.

It would also make sense to release both players, because the Cards would only need to carry three QBs going forward. The only issue is that they wouldn’t have a young QB to develop, but they could just draft a QB in the future if that’s something they really wanted to do.

Skelton had an awful QB Rating of 55.4 last season, and it’s time to move on from him. He would be their fourth-best QB behind Palmer, Hoyer, and Stanton, and he was also drafted by the previous regime. The Cardinals just re-signed Hoyer (above heavy interest from the Pittsburgh Steelers), and Bruce Arians handpicked Stanton from his previous spot with the Indianapolis Colts to be his backup. Those two aren’t going anywhere, but Skelton most likely will be released.

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