Things to consider when weighing whether the Cardinals should accept less than a second-round choice in return for receiver Anquan Boldin:

• Cody Brown, Calais Campbell, Alan Branch, Deuce Lutui, J.J. Arrington, Karlos Dansby, Boldin, Levar Fisher, Kyle Vanden Bosch, Michael Stone and Raynoch Thompson were all second-round choices for the Cardinals since 2000.
• Rashad Johnson, Early Doucet, Buster Davis, Leonard Pope, Eric Green, Darryl Blackstock, Darnell Dockett, Gerald Hayes, Josh McCown, Dennis Johnson, Adrian Wilson and Darwin Walker were all third-round draft choices for the Cardinals since 2000.

Let's remove three of those players from the discussion -- Brown, Johnson and Doucet -- because they haven't been around long enough to evaluate.

That leaves us with 10 second-round choices and 10 third-round choices. Arizona's third-rounders produced more stars (Dockett, Wilson) but also far more complete busts (Davis, Blackstock, Johnson, Walker).

The second-rounders produced one star (Boldin) and more good players (Dansby, Campbell, Lutui, Vanden Bosch) without as many complete busts (Stone). Even the underwhelming second-round choices (Arrington, Thompson, Branch, Fisher) made contributions.

I don't think Arizona can get a second-round choice for Boldin under the circumstances. A third-rounder might be worth taking given that Boldin would likely be leaving after the 2010 season unless the team decided to name him its franchise player.