Matt Leinart: Arizona Cardinal

Last night, toward the end of the first half of the Cardinals-Patriots preseason game, USC alum Matt Leinart took the field at Gillette Stadium to begin his pro football career.

Leinart's appearance in a Cardinal uniform felt, finally, like the closing of a book, in a way neither this past Rose Bowl nor NFL Draft Day could. The Rose Bowl was a torment that extended beyond mere the mere losing of a game, or even a championship. Matt Leinart came into the 2006 Rose Bowl with his place in college football already secure: a Heisman Trophy, two National Championships, two Bowl MVPs. However, had the Trojan defense managed one stop of two in the last seven minutes, had Leinart converted one of two fourth-and-shorts, had Reggie Bush not attempted that ill-fated lateral--had any of these things happened, Matt Leinart's place in history would have transcended college football. He would have elevated himself to that rareified air in which his accomplishments would be judged within the context of all major college sports, a place now--still--occupied only by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor as was), with his three Final Fours, three National Championships, three MVPs.

Well, as we know, Leinart's final ascent didn't happen. And so we will have to content ourselves by placing Leinart on the first string of college football's all-time squad, and leaving it at that. (When making out the starting twenty-two, historians will say, "Okay, start with Leinart at QB and Charles Woodsen at cornerback; they're the two nobody argues about." Then we can debate Herschel Walker vs. Archie Griffin and all the rest.)

Draft day, to me at least, was all about the Houston Texans' historically awful decision to pick defensive end Mario Williams over all-everything running back Reggie Bush, the sheer stupidity of which is already becoming manifest.

Last night, though, after all the bad press, after the holdout, after report after report of how he was drowning in playbooks, Matt Leinart, in a Cardinals uniform, took the field against the preeminent NFL team of the decade.

The verdict? Not bad.

Leinart's first drive, a two-minute drill resulting in a field goal (and, ahem, the Cardinals' only points of the night) was revealing in a number of ways. First, however he may be behind the learning curve re the Cardinal offense, Leinart, as he demonstrated for three years at USC, is a master at moving the chains. He is a quarterback wholly unlike Troy Aikman and Peyton Manning, those masters of precision, of hitting the six open inches at precisely the right split-second. Last night, in rushing for 29 yards on two broken plays, Leinart reminded me of John Elway. While not having Elway's cannon of an arm (who does, who ever has?), like Elway, there is something almost animalistic in Leinart--a hunger in watching the field unfold before him, looking for the advantage, and bang, exploiting the weakness. You saw it in the fourth-and-nine audible to Dwayne Jarrett versus Notre Dame, and you saw it here.

Reporters covering the game seemed surprised by Leinart's mobility. When asked why he so rarely cut loose that way at USC, his answer was revealing, both of the Trojans and the Cardinals: "I didn't have to."

Leinart's passing line on the night--4 of 11, 45 yards, no TDs, no INTS--was more impressive when one considers that two on-the-money passes were simply dropped. Considering that he went into the game with three days of preparation, considering his most (only, really) successful drive was against the Patriots first-string defense, and considering that his opposition was the New England Patriots, by and large, a thumbs up.