The Cardinals signed offensive tackle Nate Potter, their seventh-round pick, to a four-year contract, the team announced on Thursday.

Financial terms were not released.

Potter is the fifth of seven draft picks to sign. The team’s top two selections, receiver Michael Floyd (first round) and cornerback Jamell Fleming (third round) have not signed.

Potter started 42 games in four seasons at Boise State and played in 51 of a possible 53.

TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — The Arizona Cardinals have signed defensive end Landon Cohen, a move that puts the team at its roster limit of 90.

The 6-foot-3, 300-pound Cohen has played in 25 NFL games with five starts. He played in one game for the New England Patriots last season. Cohen was a seventh-round draft pick of the Detroit Lions in 2008. He played in 20 games in two seasons with the Lions, four of them as a starter. Cohen played in two games for Jacksonville in 2010 before going to the Patriots.

The signing Wednesday doesn’t preclude further moves, but any addition would require someone to be dropped from the roster.

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The Cardinals reached the roster maximum of 90 players Wednesday when the team signed free agent defensive end Landon Cohen.

Cohen, 6-feet-3, 300 pounds, has played in 25 NFL games, starting five of them. He played in one game with New England last season.

The Lions drafted him in the seventh round out of Ohio in 2008. He spent two seasons with the Lions and has also been with Jacksonville.

The Cardinals had one spot open on the roster and obviously needed some depth at defensive end. Signing Cohen doesn’t preclude them from reaching agreement with defensive end Vonnie Holliday or outside linebacker Clark Haggans. Whenever that happens, the club will make a corresponding roster move.

Holliday and Haggans aren’t the type of guys who need a lot of work in the off-season to get ready. No one in the NFL keeps himself in better shape than Haggans. But I don’t think the Cardinals will wait too long to bring them in. Both are good guys who could serve as mentors to the many young players on the team.

The Arizona Cardinals have signed free agent safety Eddie Elder, running back Javarris James, cornerback Larry Parker and kicker/punter Rickey Schmitt. All four players participated in the Cardinals rookie minicamp this past weekend on a tryout.

Elder (5-10, 185) played in all 25 games with 20 starts in two seasons at Arizona State and totaled 130 tackles, three INTs, seven passes defensed, one sack, and one forced fumble.

James (6-0, 215) joins the Cardinals after spending the 2010 season with Indianapolis. He played in 10 games with the Colts and led the team with six rushing touchdowns while totaling 112 yards on 46 carries and adding nine catches for 63 yards.

Parker (5-11, 176) was a two-year starter at San Diego State where he led the Aztecs with seven interceptions last season. He also set career highs with 65 tackles (42 solos), three forced fumbles and one fumble recovery as a senior in 2011.

Schmitt (6-2, 217) returns to the Cardinals after originally signing with the team as a rookie free agent in 2007. After spending time on the practice squads with Pittsburgh and Oakland, he made his NFL debut with San Francisco in 2009.

Cardinals rookies went through their first practice as professionals Friday, and accordingly, miracles were neither expected nor produced.

“They get a gold star if they can line up right today,” coach Ken Whisenhunt said.

There were two practices Friday, two more scheduled for Saturday and another Sunday. The idea is to teach the 47 players in attendance, mostly rookies, enough that they can compete for jobs when the entire team begins practicing in a few weeks.

“The thing that you tell them is you are not going to make the team this weekend,” Whisenhunt said. “If you want to make a good impression, don’t make mistakes and do it right from a technique standpoint. If you can work on those things and get better over the course of the days, then you’ll stand out and you’ll have a chance to get reps when the vets get in here. And that will give you a chance to make the team.”

In attendance were all seven draft picks, 16 rookie free agents, 16 players trying out and eight others who spent time on the practice squad last season.

The practices were filled with the basics, such as play calls and alignments. Some players had easier times with it than others.

For receiver Michael Floyd, the first-round pick, the practice seemed familiar because there are similarities between the Cardinals’ offense and the one used by coach Charlie Weis in Floyd’s first two years at Notre Dame.

“I’m adjusting to it,” he said. “It’s different from college to here and I have to make sure I’m crisp with everything.”

Whisenhunt called the workouts interesting.

“It was, in a lot of ways, fun,” he said. “The enthusiasm was great. The effort was great. Didn’t quite know what they were doing all the time.

“But it really makes you appreciate being on the field again. We didn’t have this last year because of the lockout and boy, this is a lot of fun, being out there with the guys, working on football stuff.”

It’s the first rookie camp in Whisenhunt’s five years with the team. Usually, rookies and veterans practice together, but the new collective-bargaining agreement changed some off-season practices.

This camp is for rookies and other young players. Everyone will participate in organized team activities, which start in two weeks, and the off-season concludes with a team minicamp in mid-June.

“You can devote more time to them, they’re getting more reps and you’re getting to see how they react to some situations,” Whisenhunt said. “Some of the instinctive things and what they’ve been coached on. Like a receiver when he beats a defensive back, is he going to get over the top, is he going to the run to the sideline?”

Reputations are like oil stains. They don’t remove easily.

But after years of draft-day debacles, the Cardinals finally are cleaning up their image as talent purveyors.

In the process, they finally might have solved the franchise’s deepest fundamental flaw.

“It starts with Michael (Bidwill) and Rod (Graves),” said Steve Keim, the recently promoted vice president of player personnel. “Those guys have continued to place more and more emphasis on our scouting department. It’s not just an afterthought anymore, and I think that’s extremely crucial to the success of a NFL team. Putting together a good scouting staff is every bit as important as putting together a good coaching staff.”

Start with Keim, who has taken on a more-authoritative role in personnel matters in recent years while his boss, Graves, tends to the business side of football. The results have raised the bar and some eyebrows.

Keim isn’t a general manager by title. But he talks like one. He acts like one. He’s not shy with his opinions. Recent draft classes reveal a franchise operating in sync, and a team enjoying a steady influx of young players. He knows what Ken Whisenhunt wants in a player, and over time, has earned the coach’s trust.

“Ken is all about character and intangibles and getting the right kind of players in the locker room,” Keim said. “And now we’ve hit on enough players where Ken feels comfortable with us, with the process.”

That hasn’t always been the case in Arizona.

Entering his 14th season with the team, Keim was just an underling with the Cardinals when the scouting department was full of crusty veterans who didn’t exactly blaze a trail. They read other people’s reports. One of them took the position that Terrell Suggs was nothing more than a third-round pick, and wouldn’t budge.

It created a dysfunctional paralysis, where the coach occasionally would leave the draft room shaking his head, or seething with anger. That’s no way to run a football team.

In the NFL, smart franchises use draft picks to address the future. They use draft picks to replace players who will be too expensive or too old in coming years. They use draft picks to select the best football players on the board.

Bad football teams are constantly treading water. They have holes to fill. They draft for need while other teams eye superior talent. That only widens the competitive gap.

Keim won’t take all the credit for the team’s enhanced performance in talent evaluation, citing scouting colleagues Jason Licht (former Patriots personnel director and finalist for the Bears’ GM vacancy), Dru Grigson (brother of Colts GM Ryan Grigson) and Malik Boyd. But something has changed dramatically in Tempe.

“We have guys that don’t get a lot of accolades,” Keim said. “But in the last five years, we’ve done a complete overhaul of the scouting department. And Jason (Licht) coming back is really going to bolster the strength of our department.”

Keim also credits Graves for affording him a “long leash,” and for reeling him in when necessary. Graves also deserves credit for apparently grooming a successor, for being committed to team and not his own ego, for recognizing his own spotty record as a talent evaluator.

Two years ago, Keim was working for the Cardinals while living in North Carolina, a decision born out of convenience. Now he’s full-time in Arizona and a hot name in league circles, having just interviewed for the Rams’ GM job.

Imagine how good he’ll look if Ryan Williams (last year’s second-round pick) and Michael Floyd (first-rounder in 2012) are standout performers this season.

“I think there are three things that make a great personnel man: your eye to evaluate talent, your organizational skills and your conviction,” Keim said. “If you’re talking to a GM or a head coach about a player they don’t know, and you don’t come full tilt with strong conviction, how can they believe in you?

“To me you have to be willing to stand up and swing for the fences. You don’t get better by trying to hit singles all the time.”

Impact players and keen-eyed evaluators are hard to find in the NFL. Generally, you don’t get one without the other. And after all these years, the Cardinals might have figured it out.

Reach Bickley at dan.bickley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8253. Follow him at twitter.com/danbickley. Listen to “Bickley and MJ” weekdays on 2-6 p.m. on XTRA Sports 910.

As far as surprises go, an NFL team drafting a cornerback in the third round doesn’t usually cause a change in anyone’s vital signs.

But it was eye-opening last weekend when the Cardinals selected Oklahoma cornerback Jamell Fleming there, adding to a line of cornerbacks that already stretched out the locker-room doors.

Patrick Peterson is the only one in the line with a secure starting job. The position on the opposite side of the field is open, and the Cardinals are going through an intense search process to fill it.

“There’s nothing wrong with competition at any position,” cornerback Greg Toler said. “Me, I always know if someone is on my heels, it brings the best out of me. Just bring it on. Let’s just play ball.”

At least four cornerbacks, including Toler and Fleming, have a legitimate shot at starting at left cornerback. Toler was contending for the job last summer when he suffered a torn ACL and missed the season. A.J. Jefferson, who lost the starting job after seven games, is returning. William Gay signed as a free agent.

At least two factors motivated the Cardinals to sign Gay and draft Fleming: Coaches didn’t think the team was good enough at that cornerback spot last season, and they believe there is no such thing as having too many cornerbacks.

“If offenses are going to be in some form of a sub-package, where they have three or four receivers on the field 60 percent of the time, you are going to be running eight or nine defensive backs on the field,” coach Ken Whisenhunt said. “We saw tremendous value in players that were able to move around and play different spots and make it more difficult for offenses to get a feel for what we were doing. That’s why we had some success.”

Gay played his previous five seasons with the Steelers, who for years have run the same defensive system the Cardinals installed a year ago.

Gay was a full-time starter for two years, including 2011, but being in the starting lineup isn’t the be-all, end-all for him.

“At the end of the day, this league requires a good, solid four corners, maybe five,” Gay said. “My thing is if you’re stuck on just trying to be a starter, and that’s it, you’re really not focused on the right thing.

“It’s a ‘W’ at end of the day that counts. I don’t care what 11 (players) are out there. When I was a nickel (corner) in Pittsburgh, I got roughly 40 plays. That’s the way the offenses are starting to attack. You are going to get playing time, either way. You just want it to be competitive as possible and that’s what we’re going to make it be.”

Others cornerbacks could figure into the mix. Crezdon Butler played in just one game last season because of an ankle injury. Mike Adams is short (5-feet-8) but he’s held off challengers for the past five seasons. Marshay Green and Korey Lindsey are practice-squad players trying to make the regular roster.

Gay, Toler, Jefferson and Fleming are expected to be the top contenders for the starting job.

Toler estimates he’s 85 percent recovered from the torn ligament and hopes to participate in workouts this month and next. He’s gained 11 pounds up to 198, most of it appearing to be in his upper body.

“(Larry Fitzgerald) keeps telling me he’s going to take me up top,” Toler said. “He’s like, you know I’m going to test that knee out.’”

Defenders are at a disadvantage in the pass-happy NFL, where the rules favor the offense. On the flip side, a passing league means not only more employment opportunities for receivers, but for defensive backs, too.

“They’re giving us jobs,” Jefferson said, “but just making our jobs harder.”

The Arizona Cardinals are a step closer to suing cash-strapped Glendale over the loss of about 3,200 parking spots near the NFL stadium that workers demolished to build an outlet mall.

The Cardinals and the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority, which operates University of Phoenix Stadium, on Wednesday delivered a notice of claim to the city seeking up to $66.7 million to replace the lost parking with garages, unless an acceptable solution is found.

The claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, follows two April letters to the city that laid out the team’s and sports authority’s concerns that parking demolished in February to build the 38-acre Tanger Factory Outlets complex could not be replaced. They gave Glendale a Tuesday deadline to provide assurances that parking spaces at Westgate City Center would be replaced.

The city never responded, according to the claim.

The Cardinals began playing at the Glendale stadium in 2006. An agreement signed four years earlier required Glendale to provide 6,000 spots for football games and other stadium events at Westgate, the restaurant and entertainment complex near the stadium.

A possible short-term solution the city presented in March did not comply with the parking agreement because the spots were outside Westgate, according to the team’s and sports authority’s April 9 letter to the city.

City Attorney Craig Tindall, whose city faces a $35 million deficit in next year’s budget, said the franchise “jumped the gun” with its notice of claim.

Tindall said the parking agreement requires the 6,000 spots be available only about two months before the first football game. The first Cardinals game is set for Aug. 17, and the city is working to have an answer for the Cardinals within weeks, the city attorney said.

City Manager Ed Beasley said Glendale transportation staffers are working to find spots and are likely to provide responses to the Cardinals soon.

The city manager acknowledged March meetings with the Cardinals and the sports authority, but he could not say whether there had been discussions since or provide details on possible plans.

Cardinals spokesman Mark Dalton said Glendale never responded to April letters, which were also signed by representatives from the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee, the Fiesta Bowl and the NFL.

“Today, the city doesn’t own or control enough land at Westgate to perform the contract, and under these unique circumstances, we have a legal right to assurances they have the ability to perform that obligation,” Dalton said.

The parking woes are further complicated by Westgate’s troubles. The 6-year-old complex fell into foreclosure last year.

This year’s announcement that Tanger would open an outlet mall there, along Loop 101 just south of Glendale Avenue, was a sliver of good news for the complex that is now partly owned by two separate lenders.

The city attorney said any new development at Westgate would impact stadium parking plans, but he said there has long been an understanding that parking could be shuffled.

“We haven’t violated any agreements,” Tindall said. “We don’t intend to violate any agreements. We are working on a solution.”

If one exists, sports-authority President Tom Sadler said he would like to see it soon.

“I think we’re prepared to sit down and fully vet any solutions (Glendale) may have, but meanwhile, the clock is ticking toward game day,” he said.

Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kevin Kolb understand what he’s up against in 2012.

In addition to committing to pay Kolb $19 million over his first two seasons, the Cardinals also sent cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie to the Philadelphia Eagles to acquire who they thought would emerge as their next franchise quarterback.

After a lackluster 2011 season, Kolb knows that he needs to produce results on the field to justify the team’s investment in him.

“I’m as anxious for this year as I’ve ever been. I’m looking forward to proving this move was right,” Kolb recently said, via told the Tucson Citizen.

Kolb missed seven games with a foot injury and a concussion. When he was healthy, Kolb didn’t perform up to expectations.

The Cardinals have tried to give Kolb some help by selecting receiver Michael Floyd in the first round. The team also took three offensive linemen over the last four rounds.

The rookies will not show up until May 11 for a three-day camp, but Kolb says he likes what little of Floyd he has seen on tape.

“He seems like a guy who fits us well,” Kolb said. “One thing that’s going to help him in our system is the way he attacks the ball.”