Comments (0) Best Reason to Believe the Cardinals Will Be Better than Last Year - 2009
Beanie Wells
All the sports pontificators like to predict that the Arizona Cardinals won't make it to the Super Bowl again next season. They like to say that losing teams in recent Super Bowls have tended to tank, some failing to boast even a winning record the next year.
All true. But, despite that opening-game loss, we believe the Cards will be better. We're not crazy enough to say they will make it to the Super Bowl again, but we think they will go far in the post-season. Look at the team roster. All the key offensive players will be back: Kurt Warner, Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin, a much-improved offensive line. Who won't be back is Edgerrin James, a great running back in his time who was over the hill by the time he donned Cardinals red and white.
In his place will be Chris "Beanie" Wells, the most punishing runner available in last year's NFL draft of college players. The Ohio State phenom is a 6-foot-1, 235-pound pile driver who ranks fourth (and he left college a year early) on the perennially nationally ranked Buckeyes' all-time rushing list with 3,382 yards. Wells entered last season as the front-runner for the Heisman Trophy but was hampered, missing three games, after he injured his right foot in OSU's season opener. But, by season's end, he still ranked sixth nationally in rushing with almost 120 yards per game.
The Cards already have Tim Hightower, a bulldozer of a back who started much of last season over James, but he's no Beanie Wells. The rookie should add a running dimension that the team hasn't possessed in recent memory. A long-yardage threat, as well as a guy who can bust it in on the goal line, he will compliment what last year was predominantly a passing game. If Wells makes the smooth transition into the pros that everybody predicts he will, opposing teams will be hard-pressed to adjust to the Cards' attack. He's a fearsome addition to an offense that was fourth in the league last year without him.
