Josh Rosen impresses Cardinals at OTAs while Mike Glennon reportedly vomits on field
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Let's check in with the Cardinals' quarterback situation at OTAs
Sean Wagner-McGough @seanjwagner
The Josh Rosen era is off to a promising start in Arizona. On the other hand, the Mike Glennon era is off to a much yuckier kind of start.
During the the first day of the Cardinals voluntary OTAs on Tuesday, Sam Bradford, who the team gave $15 million guaranteed to in free agency to be their bridge quarterback, got the day off while Glennon left practice almost immediately due to a stomach bug, according to ESPN.com's Josh Weinfuss. That gave Rosen a chance to split the first-team reps along with undrafted rookie Chad Kanoff.
The positive reviews came pouring in immediately after. It turns out, Rosen looks very much like a quarterback who never should've dropped to No. 10 in last month's draft.
According to right guard Justin Pugh, Rosen won over some of the veterans by opening with a joke. Pugh revealed that Rosen actually said, "'Hey, what's up, guys? I'm Josh,'" during his first huddle.
"He was good," Pugh said, via ESPN.com. "I was surprised at how well he did with the limited amount of time that he's spent here so far. The first thing I told him was, 'Take command of the huddle. This is your huddle.' He did a good job. I was impressed with what he did today."
"He stepped in the huddle and had a lot of pizzazz," left tackle D.J. Humphries said. "He didn't seem like he was choked up at all. Voice didn't crack none. He wasn't talking low. He was excited. He was asserting himself into the huddle, and I was pretty excited to see that."
Don't worry, he did more than just impress his teammates with the sound of his voice. He also impressed his coach with his actual quarterbacking abilities.
"Josh looked great today," coach Steve Wilks said. "Some of his timing and his throws with the quarterback and tight ends I thought were right on point."
Remember when pundits thought Rosen's penchant for asking questions would be a hindrance in the NFL? Well, it sounds like he's already asking questions and shockingly, his teammates seem to be more than OK with it. According to Humphries, Rosen asked a coach a question about a defensive look when he was still inside the huddle. Humphries came away impressed.
"That, to me, is a big deal," Humphries said. "A guy that's confident enough in himself to understand that, 'Hey, I don't know that. I'm going to turn around and ask this coach that knows. I don't mind pausing all of this stuff so I can figure this out, and I'm going to get out here, and I'm going to snap this ball, and we're going to get it going.'"
Obviously, it's voluntary OTAs, which means we shouldn't overreact to anything that happens. Just because Rosen impressed his coach and teammates at his first practice with them doesn't mean Rosen is going to beat out Bradford for the starting job. If Bradford is healthy, he'll probably be the team's starter because he's a good quarterback when healthy, though he's certainly had a problem staying healthy.
But the reviews coming from OTAs are encouraging because it wipes away the notion that Rosen wouldn't be a good fit in the NFL because of his so-called millennial-ness (whatever that means) and because it indicates that Rosen isn't that far away from being ready to start in the NFL. Who knew that asking questions would actually be a good trait for a young quarterback?
Unfortunately for Rosen, even though he might've been the most NFL-ready quarterback in the 2018 NFL Draft, he's stuck behind arguably the best bridge quarterback on the best team in comparison to where the other top quarterbacks landed in the draft. If the Cardinals end up zooming out to a winning record with Bradford, they're going to have a difficult time making the move to Rosen. It got a bit lost due to the Rams' sudden emergence and Jimmy Garoppolo's closing stretch as the 49ers' quarterback, but the Cardinals found a way to go 8-8 last season despite the losses of both David Johnson and Carson Palmer. The Cardinals have a chance to be sneaky good if Johnson stays healthy and their quarterback situation improves.
Glennon is part of that quarterback situation, but he shouldn't expect to see the field unless both Bradford and Rosen go down with injuries. Glennon, who got his brief chance to start with the Bears last season before he puked all over the field in a horrendous four-game stretch, signed with the Cardinals in free agency. At the time, he might've thought he had a decent chance to see the field in 2018 due to Bradford's injury history, but the drafting of Rosen likely ended that chance.
Glennon's off to a rough start at OTAs too. If you're wondering why Rosen split first-team reps with Kanoff and not Glennon, it's because Glennon left practice 20 minutes after it started because he was vomiting on the field, according to Weinfuss. Wilks said that Glennon "ate something wrong."
Here's to hoping we find out in 20 years that Rosen, taking a page out of "Game of Thrones," actually poisoned Glennon to secure more first-team reps for himself as he tries to climb above the chaos of the Cardinals' quarterback room. Remember, chaos isn't a pit. It's a ladder.
