Preseason finale intriguing for Cards

Preseason finale intriguing for Cards
by Kent Somers - Aug. 28, 2008 11:40 AM
The Arizona Republic

For the Cardinals, playing Denver in the final preseason game is as much a part of August as monsoon storms, back-to-school sales and roster cuts.

Friday night's game will be the fifth consecutive year in which the teams have met in the final preseason game. And it will be hard to distinguish this one from its predecessors.

Denver's starters won't play. The Cardinals starters will be in for about two series. And the next day, no one will care who won.

If you look hard enough, however, there is some intrigue, at least for the Cardinals. Coach Ken Whisenhunt insists he hasn't decided whether Matt Leinart or Kurt Warner will be the starting quarterback, and this game figures to be the last piece of information for him to evaluate. Neither Deuce Lutui nor Elton Brown has seized the right guard spot, and there are a handful of backups still battling for a place on the 53-man roster.

"It's really come down, at a number of positions, to how they play in this game," Whisenhunt said. "And we've made that point to the team this week. I love the guys we have on this team . . . but realistically (some) are not going to be here on Saturday."

NFL teams must cut to 53 players by Saturday afternoon. That means 22 players will be ex-Cardinals by then.

There are fewer spots open on this roster than there were last year in Whisenhunt's first season. The Cardinals spent most of the off-season upgrading the defensive depth, and with every offensive starter returning, that side of the ball seems set.

Injuries could change the dynamic, but coaches are going to be faced with cutting a few good players on Saturday.

That's especially true at inside linebacker. Four players - Monty Beisel, Matt Stewart, Brandon Moore and Ali Highsmith - are competing for the two backup spots behind starters Gerald Hayes and Karlos Dansby.

Highsmith is a rookie, and the other three have played at least six years in the NFL. The club could cut Highsmith and try to re-sign him to the practice squad, but it would be gambling he wouldn't be claimed by another team.

The situation at receiver is tight, too. Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald are entrenched as the starters. Steve Breaston and Jerheme Urban have emerged as the primary backups. Early Doucet, the third-round pick, will make the team.

Sean Morey is a valuable special teams player, but he's spent his NFL career on the bubble. Urban has played well this summer, but he doesn't contribute much on special teams. Rookie Lance Long has been impressive at camp, but has he been good enough to make the regular roster?

Those are some of the questions coaches must answer by Saturday afternoon.

The quarterback situation has obscured those topics for most of training camp.. If Whisenhunt has picked either Warner or Leinart as the starter, he's not telling. Warner will start Friday, but that's only because he's played fewer snaps this preseason than Leinart has, Whisenhunt said.

Leinart seems eager to play again after a disastrous performance in Oakland last week. He had three passes intercepted in the first half and left the game with a quarterback rating of 2.8.

A day later, ESPN.com reported that Whisenhunt was "expected" to choose Warner as the starter for the season opener in San Francisco. Over the next few days, the story morphed into Whisenhunt having officially made the move.

Whisenhunt has denied the story and subsequent adaptations. He hasn't made a decision, he said, and hasn't committed to a timetable for announcing it. Warner told the team's Web site this week that "it would be nice" if the quarterbacks knew far enough in advance to deal with the media coverage and prepare for the season opener Sept. 7 in San Francisco.

"I understand the quarterback is the focus and a lot of people are quick to make judgments on that," Whisenhunt said. "But as we've said all along, it's a process with the quarterbacks. You don't do it off of just one play or one half. It's a comprehensive test."





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