Bleacher Report - Articles by Ted Choate

Ken Whisenhunt: It's Time for This Zebra to Change His Stripes

Ted Choate — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:22:09 -0400

Free Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin, Kurt Warner, and the Arizona Cardinal passing attack!

The Arizona Cardinals just beat the San Francisco 49ers on the road.

It’s time to celebrate. Break out the pom-poms.

When was the last time the Cards could celebrate being 1-0 and atop their division?

But this team is like no other team that the Cardinals have had since moving to the desert.

This team is loaded and loaded on both sides of the ball. Surely we can expect big things from such a talented team playing in an absurdly weak division.

But it seems almost as if the only thing that can stop this team is its head coach, Ken Whisenhunt.

Ken Whisenhunt is a conservative coach, with a ball-control, play-it-safe style. It’s a style he has seen work first hand as an assistant coach on many great Pittsburgh Steeler teams. Those teams had dominating offensive and defensive lines.

But Ken Whisenhunt is no longer in Pittsburgh. He’s in Arizona.

The best players on his team are no longer found in the trenches. They are quarterbacks, receivers, linebackers, and safeties.

The Cardinals, unlike the Steelers, cannot simply out-smash their opponents. With his current personnel, that would be a recipe for disaster. But, fear not, the Cards are not without a few tricks of their own.

Defensive Coordinator Clancy Pendergast uses an attacking, gambling style.

Few would argue that Pendergast is not using the right style for the Cardinals' defensive personnel. The defense features fast, aggressive playmakers. Adrian Wilson, Karlos Dansby, Darnell Dockett, and others are given the chance to fly around the field and hawk the ball.

And it seems obvious that the defensive players love this style.

This style is, at best, a high-risk, high-reward style. Look no further than the recent game against the San Francisco 49ers, where the Cardinals' defense was occasionally gashed for big plays, yet also managed to come up big with four forced turnovers.

This risky sort of defense may not be what Ken Whisenhunt would have designed, but this defense certainly fits well with the personnel that the Cards have. And barring a plague of injuries like the Cards experienced last season, this will be an effective unit.

So wouldn’t it also make sense for Ken Whisenhunt to similarly mesh his offensive playing style with his offensive personnel?

Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald is arguably the best wide-receiver tandem in the NFL. Kurt Warner, who twice led the St. Louis Rams to the Super Bowl, seems to have regained his MVP form. The offensive line has been much improved and finally has player continuity.

In fact, it’s clear that Whisenhunt has the players lined up and ready to throw the ball all over opposing defenses. They’re just waiting for the coach to call their numbers.

But Whisenhunt seems to prefer a strong running game to what he sees as the more high-risk, high-reward passing game.

That, in my view, is the problem. The Cardinals' running game is anything but strong and certainly plays at a level well below its passing game.

The Cardinals are a team whose top running back, Edgerrin James, is now 30-years old and lacks any type of breakaway speed. And his backup, Tim Hightower, is an unproven fifth-round draft pick out of Richmond.

Put another way, why give superstar Larry Fitzgerald $40M and then promise to redo Anquan Boldin's contract if the head coach simply intends to employ a run-first gameplan?

Why not spend that money on a couple of run-blocking linemen and fill the backfield with quality depth instead? That would seem to make more sense, given Whisenhunt’s preferences.

Make no mistake. I do not advocate total abandonment of the running game. That would be unwise.

But let’s be honest in our assessments.

The Cardinals struggled against San Francisco last week while playing Whisenhunt’s power-running style. If not for the third-down heroics of Kurt Warner et al, this game may have been lost. In the second half against San Francisco, Warner went six-for-six, passing on third down.

Sure, the Cardinals did win their game, and wins are precious in the NFL.

But there is no way that this team can beat the likes of the Dallas Cowboys or the New York Giants with the current gameplan. The Cardinals cannot win against good teams by overusing a running game that averages a mere 3.3 yards per carry, and then asking the passing game to repeatedly bail the team out of trouble.

Heck, if the passing attack is that good, one might suggest that coach Whiz give it more chances when the downs and distances are more favorable.

And one might even convince the coach that such a gameplan is actually less risky than the one he is implementing right now. The current gameplan is full of third-down-and-long situations—plays with the highest risk of sack, fumble, or interception.

Against San Francisco, Warner dropped back nine times facing 3rd-and-six yards or more.

Ken Whisenhunt needs get with it and adapt to his team. This team has some of the best passing weapons in the NFL. They have the potential to be an offensive juggernaut.

As a head coach, Ken Whisenhunt brings some great things to the table. He has been unbending in his demands that players develop a great work ethic and become disciplined. They are playing harder and smarter than we have seen in years.

But if the coach refuses to bend on his run-first mentality, then he will fail. And the Cardinals will waste some of the best talent they have ever assembled.

Ken Whisenhunt Defies Rod Graves, Sends Matt Leinart Back to the Bench

Ted Choate — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 03:21:28 -0400

As local Arizona sports writers have noted, Ken Whisenhunt seems to have the ear of the Arizona Cardinals' management.

Whisenhunt is the first head coach in recent memory to have the free reign to hire qualified assistant coaches and then pay them enough to keep them content.

Whether it be the new weight room or more convenient team travel plans, it seems plain as day that Ken Whisenhunt has more influence than any recent Cardinals head coach.

In fact, sometimes, it seems like Ken Whisenhunt is part of the front office. And that is something a head coach just cannot let happen.

Let's look at the Anquan Boldin and Matt Leinart situations.

Anquan Boldin believes that he has outplayed his current contract and has sought a new deal from management this offseason.

Management, despite repeated assurances to Boldin that such a deal is forthcoming, have repeated failed to deliver. And in Anquan's mind, the Cardinals had not even made a serious efforts to work out a new deal.

Who knows for sure, but Boldin had claimed on Michael Irvin's radio show that the Cardinals approached him one time about a new contract extension that included no guaranteed money!

Boldin felt insulted, and rightfully so.

What compounds the bad feelings from Boldin's viewpoint is that earlier this season the Cards had successfully reworked Larry Fitzgerald's contract and now pay Fitzgerald over twice what Anquan is making.

So, what did Ken Whisenhunt have to do with this?

In both cases, Whisenhunt had sat in on the contract talks. After signing his mega-deal, Larry Fitzgerald praised the work that his coach put forth to get this high-dollar deal done.

Undoubtedly Boldin had noted that.

And undoubtedly, Q had also noted Whisenhunt's same presence at the failed Boldin-Drew Rosenhaus negotiation table. Unlike Fitzgerald, Boldin did not like nor appreciate the efforts that Whisenhunt had given on his behalf.

Q even reported that after the Cards presented him with an unattractive extension offer, a rather indifferent Whisenhunt asked Boldin to go ahead and sign it.

This is not a smart move by a head coach.

Coaches ask players to give their all on the field and do things some of us consider unimaginable. With this in mind, it is not smart for a coach to put himself (or even give the appearance of putting himself) between a player and his money.

Boldin felt that Whiz had crossed this line and sided with management in his failed contract-renegotiation talks. And this cannot be a good thing for the relationship between a player and his coach.

Coach Whisenhunt's handling of the Matt Leinart saga also appears to be riddled with a conflict of interest, yet clearly it should not be.

Whiz didn't draft Leinart and certainly didn't write Leinart's asinine rookie contract. That contract is Graves's problem, and Whiz has let it become his problem.

The Cards' front office is genuinely terrified about how to handle Leinart's rookie contract escalators, and hope mightily to avoid another crippling fiasco like Larry Fitzgerald's rookie contract.

In looking at Leinart's contract, one can note that by simply playing 25 percent of the snaps his rookie year, Leinart has earned a $15M escalator in contract-year five. And it also seems likely that Leinart may earn more escalators in his fifth and sixth contract years.

Unfortunately, to date, Leinart has done nothing to earn such a huge amount of money, and many in the Cardinal organization are not even sure that the guy can become a capable NFL QB.

Thus, the Card's management feels it is urgent to get Leinart on the field for an extended period of time to evaluate Leinart's game, and the front office has undoubtedly laid that burden on their Head Coach/Front-Office Assistant.

Can there be any other explanation for benching Kurt Warner and his sensational talents for a guy that put up the lowest QB rating in the NFL last season?

Here is how management wanted this situation handled.

First of all, they want Matt Leinart on the field now, not holding the clipboard.

If Leinart is able to play well and shows that he is indeed their future, then the Cards will want to re-work his deal before his fourth year, not before the critical fifth year, when the escalators are actually due to be paid out (like they did with Larry Fitzgerald's rookie contract).

If Leinart is the future, then the Cards will try to get Leinart back to the renegotiation table at the end of this year, when both sides actually have some interest in working out a contract re-do.

On the other hand, if, after a full year of playing, the Cards believed that Leinart's game is not top-tier, then they would re-work a more appropriate deal or simply release him before he was due this $15M escalator.

But say Whisenhunt does not make Matt Leinart the starter?

What happens if Leinart holds the clipboard and doesn't get a chance to show what he has on the field?

The Cardinals' front office wants to avoid this. This would essentially leave the Cards and Graves faced with two bad choices. They could pay an outrageous $15M bonus to an unknown commodity. Or more embarrassing yet, they could release a player that they have been hawking as "the face of the franchise" without the guy ever getting to show his stuff.

But this is what Whisenhunt needs to realize: These are Graves's problems, not Ken Whisenhunt's.

Ken Whisenhunt is paid to coach his team and to win games.

Whiz is the coach; and yes, he can help his team by keeping management's ear. But he will most definitely hurt his team if he allows himself to be seen as a head coach/management stooge.