Kurt Warner and Matt Leinart have something in common. By all appearances, neither guy will ever play another game for the Arizona Cardinals.
Warner joined Bickley and MJ of Xtra Sports 910 in Phoenix to discuss Leinart’s failure to secure the starting job in 2010.
“It’s tough for me,” Warner said at the outset of the segment. “Because I know Coach [Ken Whisenhunt], and I love Coach and believe in him and believe in what he does and decisions he makes and why he makes those decisions. And I’m also very good friends with Matt. And we’ve been very close for a long time. And I’ve been in those shoes before, and it’s never fun. It’s a difficult situation.”
Warner also has been in the shoes of the guy who bounces the presumed starter to the bench; Warner did it to Leinart two years ago.
And while Leinart has claimed that he outperformed Derek Anderson in the 2010 preseason, Warner explained that the decision surely was based on more than that, and that Whisenhunt is making the decision with the goal of winning as many games as possible in the coming season.
“Coach has thought long and hard and watched every play since way back when they started this offseason, and the evaluation process starts with Coach and goes through I’m sure a number of other people,” Warner said. “And they’re weighing a lot of different things to come to the final conclusion, whatever that is. You know, so I think that’s where it’s hard. Everybody looks at two preseason games and thinks, ‘Well, that’s not enough.’ But you have to understand that this process has been going on for a while.”
Warner is right. Leinart didn’t lose his job in two weeks; Leinart systematically has been putting himself in this position over the last four years. He has received every opportunity to succeed. In 2010, Leinart was backed up with a failed starter from the Browns, hardly a worth adversary.
And Leinart still failed. Regardless of why or how it happened, everyone seems to agree that it’s time for Leinart to move on and, yes, move out.