Matt Leinart Cut by the Arizona Cardinals, USC Jinx Continues

Matt Leinart was once known as Heisman Trophy winner Matt Leinart. Generally speaking, if someone won the Heisman Trophy, it's because they were the best performer in college sports that year. The Heisman also carries heavy weight during the NFL Draft, something that can sometimes cause teams to draft players they don't particularly need, simply because they have immense talent and they have a high draft number. Such was not the case of Matt Leinart, drafted by the Arizona Cardinals when they desperately needed a quarterback. And then Kurt Warner joined the Cardinals as a free agent.

Leinart is by no means a bad quarterback. He's actually really good, despite what the media may try to distort. However, he's an extremely out of practice quarterback. Keep in mind that the last full season he played was back in college. In essence, he has as much NFL experience as most rookies and sophomores who have gotten to play in the preseason. What makes Leinart's drought so unfortunate is he was seen as mostly NFL ready straight out of college, only to be forced as 2nd string once Kurt Warner announced his intentions to play for the Cardinals. With Warner as their new leader, the Cardinals reached the Super Bowl for the first time in the franchise's history only to lose to the eventual champion Pittsburgh Steelers at the final second of play from Santonio Holmes' miracle catch in the corner of the endzone (which some people believe to be a bogus call).

In most situations, having a quarterback play 1st string right out of college is seen as reckless and most teams elect to have rookies and some sophomores be 2nd string to learn how the NFL differs from college from the 1st string QB. In Matt Leinart's case, he was supposedly going to be learning from the most accurate QB of all time, Kurt Warner. Once Warner chose to retire, it was fairly obvious that Leinart would become the new 1st string QB. Most sports analysts believed that Leinart would have a less-than-impressive 1st season, but then meet his previous expectations to lead the Cardinals as the 1st or 2nd best team in NFC West.

Apparently, the Cardinals don't like the idea of ever being viewed as less than 1st ever again, because they cut Leinart today. The USC alum is now unemployed and joins Reggie Bush and Pete Carroll as having had pretty unpleasant summers stemming from their time at USC. Why the Cardinals would ever cut Leinart is beyond my imagination, but they just decided to cut a recent Heisman Trophy winner from their team. The phrase begs repeating, a Heisman Trophy winner was fired rather than traded. Leinart can now join pretty much any team he wants because he has not been in the NFL for many years and does not command a high salary.

I think the Cardinals have just proven to everyone why their team has only been to a championship game once in their franchise's history.