38. Arizona Cardinals - Ryan Mallett, Arkansas Razorbacks
This is a guest pick from Tre9er, one of the front page writers at Niners Nation and frequent abuser of Twitter's abilities to re-tweet the opinions of others to his followers. You can follow him @Tre9er.
At this point in the draft, Mallett's value begins. He actually has first-round talent in his arm but the question marks are enough to make teams wait until the second tier of QB's before they take him. Are the rumors true? Are they not? The fact that we're weeks away from the draft and those questions aren't yet answered cast enough shadow of doubt on the guy.
Mallett's arm fits well into what Arizona likes to do on offense. A natural thrower, great arm-strength, and throws one of the best deep-balls in this draft. If the Cardinals can get the power running game working like they've long hoped, Mallett should find enough time in the pocket to deliver the laser-strikes we saw during his years at Arkansas. Mallett also has some experience playing in an offense that more easily translates to the NFL than some others, such as Spread/Option QB's. The route trees and reads he made at Arkansas will help the signal caller feel somewhat at home in the NFL...or as much as a rookie QB can feel at home with thousands of pounds of beef moving at top speed.
The pass rushers left at this point don't have the value as 3-4 OLB's that you'd like to see for an early second round pick. I considered a guy like Dontay Moch, but his size and low floor don't seem to warrant this high of a pick. There will be some real gems to be had later in this draft, and Arizona knows it.