Arizona Cardinals: Sam Bradford deal a step in the wrong direction

The Arizona Cardinals needed a quarterback badly, but paying $20 million for Sam Bradford, who has never proven himself, was quite a blunder.

Sam Bradford must have the best sales pitch in the NFL. For some reason this guy just keeps getting chance after chance, despite never living up to his lofty draft status.

The No. 1 overall pick in 2010 out of Oklahoma cost the St. Louis Rams a fortune, but was nothing close to what they expected him to be. After five seasons plagued with knee injuries and a losing record of 18-30-1, Bradford was shipped to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Again, he took his mediocrity to a team with high hopes and dashed them en route to a 7-7 finish. He was sent to the Minnesota Vikings after just one season, but was again just 7-8 as a starter for them. Sadly, the only winning record in Bradford’s career came in 2017, when he started just two games, with Minnesota winning both.

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Defenders will say that he looked sharp in the Vikings opening game, which is true. The problem is he continues to be a guy who cannot be depended on to suit up from week-to-week. The Vikings let him walk after seeing him once again spend most of the season in street clothes watching the games get played by someone else.

After all that, he now somehow convinced the Arizona Cardinals to fork out $20 million in 2018 for his services — with an option for another $20 million in 2019. And other players are willing to criticize the move.

Baltimore safety Eric Weddle ripped the move, and pointed out how Bradford continues to get paid for essentially doing nothing.

Weddle is 100 percent correct. Bradford had a quick stretch in Minnesota where he looked like a stellar player. However, once he was down due to his knee injury, the team lost nothing. They looked just as strong with Case Keenum under center, suggesting the scheme and team around him inflated his regularly average numbers.

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The Cardinals needed a quarterback, so going for a veteran makes sense. What didn’t make sense was who they signed. Bradford is not a stop-gap solution, he’s a guy who will likely spend the season battling injuries while the backup quarterback gets ready to fill in. They would have been better off to spend the money anywhere else.