Arizona Cardinals: 5 Reasons They’re No Super Bowl Contender

Drew Stanton isn’t winning a Super Bowl

When Carson Palmer went down with a torn ACL in Week 10, Arizona’s outside shot at a Super Bowl went with him. Palmer was in the middle of a career renaissance and fit perfectly in Bruce Arians’ offense. He was finally reaching the peak of his quarterbacking abilities and taking his team’s offense to new heights. Without him, Arizona has had to turn to veteran journeyman Drew Stanton. While Stanton has done his best to fill in, he won’t ever raise a Lombardi Trophy.

In five games this season, Stanton has completed 67-of-125 passes for 920 yards, with five touchdowns and two interceptions. His quarterback rating of 84.1 would rank 24th in the NFL if he had enough attempts to qualify, and his completion percentage (53.6) would rank dead last.

In a pass-heavy offense, Arians and the Cardinals need an efficient quarterback who can spread the ball around. Palmer was adept at feeding the ball to multiple targets and keeping the chains moving. Stanton won’t be able to do that unless he completes a much higher percentage of his passes. And this isn’t some Kurt Warner-like situation where Stanton has been sitting around just waiting for an opportunity. He has seen action in 17 NFL games, and has been in the league since 2008. He has never shown that he’s capable of winning or keeping a starting quarterback job.

Stanton just isn’t a guy who will ever have next-level ability at his position. He’s 30, at this point he is who he is. This play from Sunday’s win over Detroit illustrated why he’ll never lead a team to the Super Bowl. He just makes a horrendous read and completely ignored the fact that Cassius Vaughn was camped out waiting for his pass. It was the easiest interception Vaughn will ever get.

On this throw from the Lions game, he does the same thing. He completely misreads the coverage and throws the ball right into the waiting arms of Josh Bynes. A guy like Palmer would never make that throw, and it illustrates the gap between the two signal-callers.

Stanton is a nice backup quarterback, but he’ll never be a regular starter in the NFL. Guys who can’t even earn a starting job don’t wind up winning Super Bowls in this league.

Next: The pass defense is a serious problem