Some players might not want the pressure that comes along with being a highly touted draft pick of their hometown team.
Brett Hundley, a Chandler, Ariz., native, sounded like a guy who will take the exact opposite approach when asked Friday about the prospect of playing for the Arizona Cardinals.
"That would be awesome. That would be amazing," Hundley told "The Rich Eisen Show." "To go home and play for your hometown team when you grew up not too far away, that would be a dream come true."
What are the chances of that marriage taking place this spring? Well, Mark Helfrich thinks the Cardinals might be after his former quarterback, Marcus Mariota, in the first round. Barring a big trade to move up, though, it's unlikely Arizona, slated to pick 24th, will have a chance to take Mariota.
By the time the Cardinals are on the clock, Mariota and Jameis Winston should be long gone, probably leaving the likes of Hundley, Baylor's Bryce Petty and others for head coach Bruce Arians and general manager Steve Keim to consider if they elect to go for a quarterback. However, it would be a massive reach to pick any QB other than Winston and Mariota in Round 1 -- those are the only two QBs ranked by Daniel Jeremiah in his list of the draft's top 50 prospects.
Come Round 2, if Hundley is still on the board, could Arizona take a look? Maybe. The Cardinals spent a fourth-round pick on Logan Thomas last year, but if Arians has decided Thomas isn't the team's quarterback of the future, perhaps he'll take a chance on Hundley and groom him behind Carson Palmer. Hundley comes from a system Arians isn't a big fan of, but, as Helfrich suggested earlier Friday, maybe Arians' critique of spread quarterbacks is a veiled attempt to help make sure a quarterback he likes falls into his lap come draft time.
