Ralph Vacchiano | Facebook | Twitter | Archive

PHOENIX - The Giants are planning to investigate every possible option when it comes to finding their Quarterback of the Future, and that includes a potential trade for Arizona Cardinals quarterback Josh Rosen.

But here's the thing: At the moment they have no idea if Rosen is, or ever will be, available.

And nothing that happened at the NFL owners meetings this week has cleared that mystery up.

Multiple Giants sources told SNY this week that all they've heard so far are "rumors" that the Cardinals plan to take Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray No. 1 overall and put Rosen on the block. They have certainly discussed the possibility internally, one source said, though those talks were extremely preliminary. They don't even seem sure at the moment whether they'd prefer Rosen - the 10th overall pick a year ago -- to the quarterbacks in this year's draft.

Mostly, they are in a wait-and-see mode to see if the Cardinals do decide to trade Rosen and what their asking price might be.

And on Tuesday morning, at the NFL coaches breakfast at the league's owners meetings, new Cards coach Kliff Kingsbury didn't exactly clear the mystery up.

"People have said a lot of things that are misconceptions, if you will," Kingsbury said. "Josh is a tremendous player, I've always thought, watching him at UCLA. He played his best football in a spread system, some similarities to what we do. He's a tremendous thinker, very cerebral, can throw it with anybody."

Of course, so can Murray, whom Kingsbury recruited out of high school and has remained close with over the years. The Murray-to-the-Cards speculation was sparked by Kingsbury's own words from last year when he said he'd take Murray with the first overall pick in the draft - months before he was hired by the Cardinals, of course, and suddenly had that first pick in his hands.

"I was head coach at Texas Tech then in October, and was speaking how I feel about him as a player and how I felt," Kingsbury said. "(I) was definitely ahead of the curve on his quarterback playing ability I think, but I had watched him a long time and I knew how special a talent he was and just appreciated his level of play and wanted to make sure that I showed him some props."

Maybe that's all it was, but many people around the NFL think it's a lot more than that. There's also a feeling that the 22-year-old Rosen, who struggled as a rookie last season, isn't a good fit for Kingsbury's "Air Raid" offense - at least not as good a fit as Murray would be.

"We take a lot of pride in building a system around a quarterback," Kingsbury said. "For someone to say he doesn't fit our system, it doesn't make sense."

Kingsbury went on to rave about Rosen - especially his toughness in fighting through a miserable situation in Arizona, where he got battered behind a patchwork offensive line and sacked 45 times last year.

"Watching him last year, continuing to get up, it would've been easy for him to tap out," Kingsbury said. "You all saw how bad it got, with all the injuries up front. Injuries at wideout, where guys couldn't create separation. He was just back there taking hit after hit, continuing to get up, and played his best football at the end of the season. You see that as a coach, it's very impressive. There is a lot there to work with."

But for him, or for someone else, like perhaps Giants coach Pat Shurmur? At the moment, that seems totally up to the Cards. And at the moment, they're not telling anyone whether they plan on trading Rosen.

"With the first pick, there is tons of chatter," Kingsbury said. "As a coach or a quarterback in this league, you have to have thick skin and you have to understand what goes on and kind of the circus that comes with this position."

Fair enough. Of course, that is neither a yes, nor a no.

Popular in the Community