Posted by Darren Urban on January 5, 2015 – 8:36 am

The end of the season, given the playoff loss, brings talk of everything offseason for the Cardinals. That includes the draft (the particulars of which I’m probably not going to discuss much until we get to Scouting combine time in mid-February.) After going 11-5, the Cardinals will draft 24th, the last of all the Wild Card round losers.

The 20 non-playoff teams go first, of course. Then comes the Bengals, who were 10-5-1 in the regular-season, at 21, Steelers (11-5) at 22 and Lions (11-5) at 23 before the Cards choose at 24. It actually moves the Cardinals up three spots in the draft had the draft selection been based on records (and subsequent tiebreakers) only.

Tiebreaks in draft order are based on strength of schedule only, and the better strength of schedule you have, the worse draft spot you have — the reasoning being if you built a certain record against lesser competition, you deserve a higher choice than someone who got the same amount of wins against better competition.

The Cardinals’ strength of schedule produced a .523 winning percentage. The Lions’ was .471 and the Steelers .451.

In the second round, the Cards will move up to 23rd in that round, with the Lions 22nd and the Steelers down to 24th. In the third round, the Cards will be 22nd, Steelers 23rd and Lions 24th. In the fourth round, the Cards rotate back to 24, Steelers 22 and Lions 23, and it continues for the balance of the draft.

Tags: Bengals Posted in Blog