CARDINALS

Arizona Cardinals' Steve Keim, Bruce Arians have draft board set

Kent Somers
azcentral sports
Arizona Cardinals running back Andre Ellington (38)  during their game against the St. Louis Rams Sunday,  Dec. 8, 2013 in Glendale.

The Cardinals set their final draft board on Thursday morning, finishing a yearlong process that pared 13,000 names to 120 players.

"I can tell you at the top, there are 20 guys we certainly like, that will fit us, that will make an impact on our team," General Manager Steve Keim said.

The Cardinals have the 20th overall pick, so it's difficult to predict what will happen in front of them on Thursday, May 8, the first day of three-day draft.

The board of the top 120 players "takes the emotion out of it," Keim said, because decisions about players have been made.

"Now is the time in the process that you have those conversations," he said.

In a news conference on Thursday, Keim and coach Bruce Arians provided few hints about specific goals for this draft. That's standard operating procedure with every team.

The Cardinals have six picks, one in each of the first six rounds, and Keim would like to add more through trades.

He did that last year, his first draft as a general manager, adding selections that turned into guard Earl Watford (fourth round) and running back Andre Ellington (sixth). Ellington had a dynamic rookie season, and Watford is expected to compete for a starting job this year.

"It (the draft) is deep enough that I really do think you're going to get third-round players in the fourth and fifth rounds, guys who can come in and be immediate impact players for you," Keim said. "When it's all said and done, you want to acquire more picks."

Keim and Arians said the Cardinals don't feel the pressure to fill any needs in this draft. Rather, they will stick with their big board of the top 120 players in the draft. The team also has a "horizontal board," Keim said, that ranks players by position.

A realistic expectation, Keim said, is to draft at least three players who are "starter types" and two more who can play significant roles.

Some recent mock drafts have the Cardinals taking a quarterback with the 20th overall pick, but Arians doesn't view the position as a pressing need.

He's confident in Carson Palmer as the starter, and a rookie has to be talented enough to beat out backups Drew Stanton and Ryan Lindley.

Keim said he's tried to limit the amount of time he spends reading others' mock draft, but Arians, who hasn't been able to coach his player yet this spring, said he's looked at most of them.

"If you Google 2014 mock draft, there are about 18 pages that come up," he said. "Of those 18 pages, I don't think we had the same player picked in any of them twice.

"It makes for great banter and chatter and good bar talk but there's not much reality to it. But it's fun to look at it."