Arizona Cardinals: Chandler Jones trade clearly worth it

When the Denver Broncos won the Super Bowl behind stellar displays from Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware, I’m sure Arizona Cardinals GM Steve Keim and head coach Bruce Arians were sitting at home and thinking, “Gee, we need to get ourselves a high-caliber, athletic edge rusher in the offseason.”

That kind of pass rusher probably won’t be available for the Arizona Cardinals at the tail end of the first round of the draft, and keeping Dwight Freeney for another season wouldn’t be sufficient. Freeney, by the way, is still sitting in free agency, but the Cardinals have already addressed their need at outside linebacker in an aggressive manner.

Earlier today, ESPN’s Adam Schefter and Dianna Marie Russini reported that the Cardinals acquired Chandler Jones from the New England Patriots for a second-round pick and oft-injured-but-talented interior offensive lineman Jonathan Cooper. A second-round pick is a hefty price, especially with Cooper thrown in as a sweetener for the offensive line-needy Patriots, but it’s well-worth it for a Cardinals team that has their eyes set on a Super Bowl bid in 2017.

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The Cardinals have a strong roster loaded with offensive weapons, an MVP candidate at quarterback in Carson Palmer, and difference-makers on defense like Patrick Peterson, Calais Campbell, and Tyrann Mathieu.

However, an impact pass rusher eluded the Cardinals, and only Freeney and Markus Golden made any sort of an impact off the edge last year. 3-4 OLB has become one of the league’s marquee positions, and the Cardinals finally have a marquee player at that position in Jones.

He may not be an elite edge rusher, but Jones put up a career-high 12.5 sacks last season and is as athletic as they come. A strong run defender, Jones has been a standout for the Patriots since Day 1, as the former first-round pick out of Syracuse was a mainstay in New England at 4-3 DE and 3-4 OLB.

So why would the Patriots trade away such a talented 26-year-old player with impressive raw tools and production? It’s simple. Bill Belichick doesn’t like losing good football players for nothing, and the Patriots would have lost Jones in 2017. The compensation they would have received in free agency wouldn’t have been worth it, so it was best to take a “win-win” type of deal with Keim and the Cardinals. The Patriots only have so much cap space to go around, and they likely view Jamie Collins and Dont’a Hightower as bigger priorities, especially after Jones used spice before a playoff game.

That said, I don’t think the Cardinals should be worried about that isolated incident, and, if anything, they could use it as leverage when they inevitably re-negotiate Jones’s expiring contract. I’m sure there’s already some sort of a handshake agreement in place, and extending Jones is worth the cost for a team that needed a pass rusher like him to give them that extra boost in the hopes of winning it all.

Drafting edge rushers can be a crapshoot, and without a top 15 pick, the Cardinals might not have been in a position to draft someone they like. Jones is a sure thing, especially since he’s been healthy for the majority of his four-year career thus far. He’s the type of playmaker who can greatly boost a team in win-now mode, so big props to the Cardinals for making this move. Sacrificing a second-round pick this year is more than worth it, since it’s hard to find a pass rusher (or any player, really) of Jones’s caliber in the late second.

Sep 12, 2013; Foxborough, MA, USA; New England Patriots defensive end Chandler Jones (95) celebrates after a sack of New York Jets quarterback Geno Smith (7) during the second quarter at Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Greg M. Cooper-USA TODAY Sports /

In Jones and Golden, the Cardinals could field one of the league’s better duos of young pass rushers, and this trade can also allow them to expand the number of positions they target with their first-round pick in this year’s draft. I wouldn’t completely rule out another edge rusher, but we could see them take a more “best available approach”, with Vernon Butler looking like an intriguing option.

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I wouldn’t say that acquiring Jones makes the Cardinals NFC favorites, but it does increase their chances of pulling ahead of the Seattle Seahawks and Carolina Panthers this time around. Remember, impact players make big plays in important games, and Jones is a game-changing talent. Although a second-round pick is valuable, immediate help at a huge position of need is even more important, and while Cooper has talent, the Cardinals can’t exactly miss a player who never really contributed to them.

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