Arizona Cardinals Cut Matt Leinart, Max Hall Named Backup QB

Somehow, it just feels right that Matt Leinart should end up with the Houston Texans as ESPN’s Chris Mortensen is reporting.

The one-year deal just seems so fitting for the final act in this telenovela.

Why so fitting? I think that answer is obvious.

Matt Leinart is now a free agent. I imagine there will be some interest in his services (Pittsburgh?).

Get over to Revenge Of The Birds for the latest coverage.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter is reporting that Matt Leinart is gone.

Leinart went in to the offseason as the heir apparent to Kurt Warner as quarterback of the pass-happy Cardinals but was unable to distinguish himself from free agent acquisition Derek Anderson in the eyes of head coach Ken Whisenhunt.

Earlier in the week, Arizona was seeking to trade the former first round pick with the Buffalo Bills, Oakland Raiders and New York Giants having been involved in discussions, league sources told Schefter on Wednesday. Instead, the Cardinals look to move away from their top selection in the 2006 draft.

With the Leinart saga seemingly over, Max Hall and John Skelton will fill out the roster at the quarterback position for Arizona in 2010.

With only one day left to cut down to the 53-man roster, Matt Leinart's days with the Arizona Cardinals can likely be counted on one finger.

Some key tweets filling in the rumor blanks:

And

This according to XTRA 910am radio's Cardinals insider Mike Jurecki.

The Arizona Cardinals have decided to let Matt Leinart – and his agent – see if there are any teams interested in trading for the quarterback according to a report from the Sports Xchange via USA Today.

The timing of this isn’t peculiar as all three of the teams that were reportedly interested in trading for the quarterback denied that they were indeed interested.

Best of luck to Leinart, but this seems more like the team is telling him “Look, you’re best off in Arizona because nobody else wants to trade for you. We tried, now have a look for yourself.”

Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com notes that former Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner went on 910AM in Phoenix and was asked about the situation surrounding current quarterback Matt Leinart, who finds himself backing up Derek Anderson and on the trade block.

“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.”

Florio writes that he agrees with Kurt Warner regarding Leinart and that the former USC Trojan quarterback should be dealt.

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.

The day started with so much promise for those looking to dump Matt Leinart and his high-completion rate, low leadership quotient on some other poor suspecting NFL team. But it would seem that trashing your own guy is not good way for Ken Whisenhunt and the Arizona Cardinals to increase Leinart's trade value.

Go figure.

The latest of the three to deny interest are the Giants who instead want a veterans backup who doesn't think he's a legitimate NFL starter. Which pretty much is what Derek Anderson was when he came to Arizona to be the backup. Oh sweet irony.

Twitter / Jay Glazer: Giants are not interested ...
Giants are not interested in trading for matt leinart. They are looking for a veteran backup who's perfectly content w being eli's backup

To recap, the Bills denied ever talking to the Cardinals despite reports they talked to the Cardinals about Leinart this summer.

Al Davis and Raiders threw a minor tissy-fit over being linked to Leinart which on second thought probably means they are interested.

So, depending on whether you take the Raiders for their word, this leaves the Cardinals trying to peddle Matt and his big remaining contract and inconvenient desire to be a starting quarterback and as damaged goods that no other team is likely to trade for.

Most likely now is they waive him and Matt gets to be a free agent and sign a brand new deal with someone who believes in him is desperate when their starter goes down with injury or stinks up the joint.

Does anyone see the Cardinals keeping Leinart now? Kind of hard to imagine that bridge hasn't been torched by both sides.

Anquan Boldin answered a question about his former teammates and while he was careful not to say too much he clearly hinted at an on-going problem (or lack of chemistry) between Matt Leinart and Cardinal's coach Ken Whisenhunt.

Sports Radio Interviews » Blog Archive » Can Anquan Boldin Help Take The Baltimore Ravens To The Next Level?
On the quarterback situation in Arizona – specifically how Matt Leinart hasn’t secured the starting job and if he’s surprised by that: “Honestly no. That’s just because I’ve been there and witnessed the relationship between both Matt and Coach Whisenhunt. So I’m actually not surprised. I don’t really want to speak too much on that because it’s not my problem. If it doesn’t refer to anybody in black and purple, I really could care less.”

Meanwhile back on the trade front, both the Raiders and Bills have denied interest in Leinart but rumors about the Giants are heating up a tad.

Cardinals locker room buzzes about possible Leinart trade to Giants | ProFootballTalk.com
We're told that the Cardinals locker room currently is buzzing with a rumor that Leinart will be traded to the Giants. It's unclear whether there's any truth to the rumor, but it is true that the Cardinals' locker room is buzzing with a rumor that Leinart will be traded to the Giants.

Adam Schefter of ESPN has reported that three teams are interested in Matt Leinart:

Three teams have discussed trading for QB Matt Leinart -- Bills, Raiders, Giants. Now we wait to see if any pull trigger by this weekend.

The Bills have denied the rumor somewhat emphatically:

Buffalobills.com has confirmed that the Bills have not had any discussions with the Cardinals in regards to Matt Leinart and aren’t anticipating any in the future. The report is simply not true.

In Buffalo, where Trent Edwards is expected to be the starter, Leinart would battle for the backup position. SB Nation's Buffalo Rumblings hash out how Leinart would fit in the Bills system and why they would have a $13 million backup quarterback.

Nothing yet from the two other rumored teams, but plenty of other Matt-entric links out there.

KTAR.com - Birdbits
"Matt Leinart has to go," Lombardi said. "Nobody in Arizona's locker room is confident that he can be the quarterback. So once you've lost the locker room, where are you going? People say 'oh, he can be a backup', for what? Nobody believes that he can play. Larry Fitzgerald doesn't want him on the field when he's in the game because he thinks he's going to get hung out to dry on a deep ball. So, it's very concerning, and I think the fans missed that.

Feels like end game for Matt Leinart - NFC West Blog - ESPN
This can only happen if the Cardinals had serious reservations about Leinart all along, or if something significant happened behind the scenes more recently, or if ownership was more committed to Leinart than the coaching staff was -- an angle I'd like to hear Whisenhunt address. Something isn't adding up.

Podcast: Ken Whisenhunt on Matt Leinart - NFC West Blog - ESPN
On Matt Leinart's feeling that he needed an explanation following his benching: It was communicated with Matt last Thursday and explained that we were going to start Derek [Anderson] in Chicago, as well as the reasons behind it. I can understand if he didn’t like the explanation or if he disagreed with it. However, I am comfortable in the way it was communicated and the way we communicate to all our players in general. There were a number of other positions where we made changes. … It's really not singling one person out. It’s about trying to find the best team for us as we go into the regular season a week and a half from now.

As always be sure to check out Revenge of The Birds for more Cardinals coverage and reactions.

According to this report, the Arizona Cardinals have put embattled quarterback Matt Leinart on the trade block.

If they don't have confidence in him, this is the right move.

Raise your hand if you predicted going into Cardinals training camp that there would both be quarterback controversy between Matt Leinart and Derek Anderson and that it would be allowed to devolved into such a big mess.

The soap opera was started when Coach Ken Whisenhunt pulled Matt Leinart from the starting QB role and went with David Anderson in the third preseason game. Both guys responded well on the field.

So far this preseason in three games Leinart has completed 19-of-23 pass attempts (82.6%) while Anderson is 31-for-53 (58.5%).

You will note both in better efficiency from Leinart and twice as many opportunities for Anderson.

Given that, you can understand Matt's frustration when he says this to the media after today's practice:

"I feel like I've outplayed the competition, training camp, preseason," Leinart said. "I think my plays speaks about that. For me, this goes beyond the football field.

"The philosophy is you want the best 11 guys to play. I feel like I've proved that with my performance. I don't really know what else I could possibly do, so it probably goes beyond football. For me, I just really want an explanation and I haven't been given one."

The Cardinals coach obviously has either soured on Leinart for reasons that he refuses to enumerate or this is all one big mind-game being played by Whisenhunt to try and get Leinart to step up his game even more.

Leinart probably should have handled the situation better than complaining to the media but at the same time it's up to the head coach to keep things like this from happening.

Overall, it's one giant mess and certainly a lot of drama that the team doesn't need going into the season. It's time for Whisenhunt to stop pussy-footing around and make a move.

He's let this get too far and now either should announce that Anderson is the starter and look to trade Leinart or he needs to get his young quarterback in his office and explain what's going on and how exactly he wants Matt to perform both on and off the field.