1st & Goal: John Gambadoro, Arizona Sports 98.7 Host

The NFL season is inching closer and closer.

Who are the contenders and who are the pretenders? We have four downs to figure out your team's future. It's time now for First and Goal on the Zach Gelb show. Let's preview the Arizona Cardinals right now with a longtime sports radio host, the 98.7 in Phoenix, Arizona sports.

That, of course, is Jon Gambadoro, kind enough to join us on CBS Sports Radio with the Zach Gelb show. Jon, appreciate the time. How you been? Always, Zach. How are you, my friend?

I'm doing fantastic. So the word tanking to me is always interesting because people say teams are tanking all the time. I don't believe players tank, but clearly owners and general managers do.

This is a tank job in Arizona, correct, Amundo? No, I disagree. I mean, I know a lot of people are saying that. The roster was garbage.

It was an awful roster. What they're doing is they're being responsible. They're building a roster responsible.

You're right. Players play to win, coaches coach to win. Nobody's trying to lose a football game. But it would have been irresponsible for them to have Colt McCoy as the starting quarterback when he can't throw the ball five yards down the field. It would have been irresponsible to go get a bunch of veteran players.

I've been in this for a long time, man. I'm telling you, they're not tanking. They're going to lose a lot of football games. They'll probably end up with the first overall pick. But they're trying to build with young players. They went out and got Parrish Johnson.

He's going to be a great tackle. And they're trying to get the right people in here to build over time. It's not going to happen overnight. So that's why people are going to say that they're going to tank. I know that they'll never admit it publicly, but you don't think like Michael Bidwell and also Monty Asenforth aren't thinking themselves, all right, let's go get the number one pick this year because it's Caleb Williams?

Zach, I'm telling you, man, I know it sounds right, but they're just not. Monty Asenforth's not trying to lose football games. Do they want to win seven games? No, they got to build this the right way. They got to be responsible.

So they're trying to build it responsibly. And yeah, that's going to mean that they lose some games this year, a lot of games, but they're not what they're not doing. They're not avoiding good talent. If they can go get good talent at young players like they did in the draft and draft assets, they're going to do that. They're also getting rid of players that didn't fit.

Isaiah Simmons, Josh Jones, Colt McCoy, to name a few. But do I think that Monty Asenforth is sitting there saying, hey, I'm going to put a roster together that's going to go all with 17? No, man.

Zach, I'm telling you, I truly don't believe that at all. It's also tough to be impressed by a first year general manager before a game is played. But without having a pick that they really want at the top of the draft to go get the Texans pick for next year is absolutely enormous for this franchise, because even if they aren't horrible enough to get the number one overall pick, which I think they will be, they basically have two enormous chips at the poker table to try to go win some money.

Yeah. I mean, the Houston pick could be a top five pick. The Cardinals pick will very likely be a top five pick, probably number one overall.

And then you've got to make this decision. Do you keep Kyler or do you move on from Kyler and take Caleb Williams? Everybody here thinks they'll take Caleb Williams if he really is a generational Patrick Mahomes type talent.

But you think about if they get two, three, four, five, I mean, you know, maybe if they get two, they could trade the pick and that could end up being Drake May and somebody will trade a lot for that. Or you take Marvin Harrison or you take an edge rusher, they'll be in a really good spot. But he got a bad roster.

Mani got a bad roster. And there was no quick fixes. There was no, you know, we're going to go from being one of the worst teams in the NFL to being in the playoffs next year. That wasn't going to happen with this roster. So I think I'm telling you, I'm calling it responsible building, building responsibly.

That's what they're trying to do. Let's get to the next down. John Gambadora here with us. I know Kyler Murray's on the pup list to start off the season. Do you think we'll at least see him on the field at some point this year?

Absolutely. They, they need to see Kyler Murray. I'd be really surprised if he does not, if he does not suit up all year long, they need to know. They need to know what they have in him.

New system, new offensive coordinator. Can he play in this system? Do you want to keep him and trade the number one pick? If you get it and get the biggest hole ever, or does he play well enough to where you may be able to trade him?

I think right now there'd be at least five teams that were trade for Kyler Murray. That's my opinion. I believe that he's better than a lot of the quarterbacks in this league, but he's probably not good enough to lead this team to a Superbowl. But I think you got to see how does he play with a new offensive coordinator and a new offensive system? Can he Excel?

Is he just average? But you got to know, so I do expect that he's going to play. So right now, not eligible to play currently, we'll see what he ends up getting back on the football field, but the biggest knock in Kyler Murray so far is the lack of leadership skills, the study skills as well.

Is there anything he could do when he's not on the field to kind of smooth over those relationships in the locker room? Yeah, I think that he was, he was, he was in all the meetings, he attended all the OTAs, he was working his butt off in the weight room. I think, you know, I had Kelvin Beecham on my show. Yeah, I remember that.

Yeah, it was a big, became a big national story. And I said, Hey, what does Kyler Murray have to do? He says, grow up. He's got to grow up. Oh man, that became national headlines. It was a big story. You know, better than offensive lineman helps Kyler Murray to grow up.

So I think he did. I think he took more responsibility with being, you know, being around the team, being around the, even when he was rehabbing, instead of rehabbing in Texas, he did a lot of rehabbing here in Arizona. That's all great, but none of it really matters if you can't play. So they got to find out, like he could do all the great, all the community things in the world, but, and be around, if he can't play, he can't play. And they've got to find out whether he's good. Now, this kid's been a rookie of the year. He won, one year, they won 11 games.

They went to the playoffs with Kingsbury. So like there's talent there, Zach. There's talent. But the question is, is he Jay Cutler? Is he Ryan Tannehill? Is he Kirk Cousins? Or is he a guy, is he a Joe Burrow? Is he a Patrick Mahomes?

Is he a guy that can lead this team through a Super Bowl? There's a lot of questions about that right now. This thing was buzzing, like you were saying, where I know that they didn't play well in the second half of the season, but when they had that wildcard game two years ago, when the Rams won the Super Bowl, that's when it really started to unravel. How did it get to this point when you look back and dissect that relationship between Cliff Kingsbury and Kyler Murray? I do think it got to that way because look, there's iPads that all these players have, and these teams know whether you're studying on that iPad or not. Every team knows when they give you an iPad, how much effort you're putting into, you know, research and looking at the film. And it was very apparent to the Steve Keim-led organization at that time, Kyler wasn't putting in much work with that thing.

So that's where the clause came in from Michael Bidwell, the homework clause, and it totally backfired, I mean, you know, because it just made him look bad, it made the organization look bad. But, you know, I think, look, the thing for Kyler is he's got to be able to read a defense, and that's his struggles right now. If you want to break it down, he's got all the talent in the world, he can throw the ball far, he can throw it accurately, he can run as good as anybody we've ever seen in this game, but can he go through reads and progressions? Because mainly he looks at one side of the field, and if something's not there, he bails. I got one or two reads, I'm looking on the left side of the field, if that's not open, I'm going to get out, I'm going to improvise, I'm going to try to create time. He doesn't have the ability to look at the left and, you know, then progressively go through three or four reads in a short amount of time and deliver the football to the right guy, so he misses a lot of open plays because he just doesn't stick in there long enough to make those reads, and his first, you know, his first thought is that by first one or two guys aren't open, I'm not going to sit here and get hit, I'm going to get out of the pocket and try to create something.

Let's get to the next down. Talking a long time, Arizona Talk Show host John Gambadora here with us previewing the Cardinals. What was your reaction to the Jonathan Gannon hire? A young, innovative guy, and you know, I think that a lot of people thought they might go after Sean Payton.

I did not think that was the case with the compensation you'd have to give up or the salary that Payton got. They were looking for somebody young, innovative, but could hold the players accountable. They were the last team to hire a coach. I don't know a lot about him. He was only a coordinator before, but I sat down with him.

I was at camp. He came up and did interviews with us, and you know, I was impressed by him. He's done a good job of holding the players accountable and having discipline, which they didn't have under Cliff Kingsbury. Cliff didn't have a lot of accountability.

Cliff wasn't a disciplinarian. Gannon's come in and he's kind of changed that. He seems to be a real player's coach, so only time will tell. The only time will tell if he's blown out in two years or if he could last three or four. We don't know, but I've been impressed with the guy so far.

With how bad this team's supposed to be, I know they're also still paying time in Kingsbury. Is there any shot this is a one and done scenario for Gannon? None. Zero.

Zero chance. I know they blew out Wilkes after one year, and they probably shouldn't have done that. They should have given him more time instead of being stuck with Josh Rosen and Sam Bradford, so I do think they made a mistake getting rid of Wilkes so quickly. They should have given him another year to see what he could do. There's no way, when you're paying Cliff Kingsbury over the next four years, Steve Keim over the next four years, there's no way they're going to get rid of Jonathan Gannon after just one year. I mean, even if they only win one or two or three games, I think they understand. I think they all understand that this roster is going to take a lot of time to rebuild.

It's not going to happen overnight in a year, so I think they'll give them every opportunity to go through the growing pains. But I think most importantly, you know what's important to me, Zach? Be competitive. You're not going to win a lot of football games. Be competitive. You know, try to be in some one score games. Give yourself a chance in the fourth quarter.

Even if you don't win, just try to be more competitive than people think you're going to be. Yeah, I think the goal is, and I don't, I don't, if I'm a Cardinals fan, I would want them to get the number one overall pick, but kind of be like the Dolphins from a few years ago, where everyone thought they could be the number one overall pick, and they won some games that no one probably thought they were going to, and they ended up picking fifth in the draft. Like, if that's the case for the Cardinals this year, yeah, it could screw you in the Caleb Williams watch, but that would be good for this coaching, Seth.

Listen, I think if you're a Cardinal fan, you should want them to lose every game. I mean, if this kid Caleb Williams really is the next Patrick Mahomes, go get him, or at least have the ability to trade the pick for four first round picks. Like, if they do trade the number one overall pick, it will be the biggest haul that anybody has ever gotten for a number one overall pick. It'll, it'll be the top trade ever made for a number one overall pick. So, put yourself in a position, I mean, I hope, you know, I hope they lose every game, you know, because, you know, you put yourself in that position to get better right away.

Let's get to the final down. When the trade deadline is done with, do you think Buddha Baker's still on this team? Yes.

Yes, I do. I don't know about Zach Ertz or James Cotter, but you gotta have, you gotta have a guy that leads by example, that players want to follow, that teaches the younger players how to prepare for a practice, how to prepare for a game, how to conduct an interview with the media, how to hold yourself accountable when you make mistakes, you know, how to deal with, with, with rehabbing an injury. Like you need a leader. You can't have none in the locker room.

Booters, the epitome of a leader. He's as good a leader as there is in the league. So I think you've got to have a guy like that to set the right examples for the younger players. You know, we talked so much doom and gloom about this team outside of Kyler. Who's like the one player you're really excited to see this year. Paris Johnson, first overall pick, offensive lineman, Ohio state. If they nailed this pick, they'll have a great tackle for 10 years.

If they didn't, you know, you'll move on. But to me, Paris Johnson, because finally, finally, they addressed the offensive line instead of drafted all these linebackers that never work out. You know, they already got rid of Isaiah Simmons. He was the eighth overall pick a couple of years ago. So offensive lineman is, you know, DJ Humphreys was a good pick, but that was 10 years ago. Go in and get Paris Johnson to me. That's the guy everybody should be focused on.

Can he be a great tackle in this league? John Gambadore, 97 in Phoenix. Appreciate the time as always. Okay, Zach, you got to take care of my friend.