27. Arizona Cardinals’ draft recovery
The Arizona Cardinals made a complete mess of things leading up to the 2019 NFL Draft. After a dreadful 2018 season, they were the owners of the No. 1 overall pick and speculation was rampant that they could go for Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Kyler Murray.
This was controversial, as they had just moved up to the No. 10 pick the prior season to land UCLA Bruins signal caller Josh Rosen. However, they completely changed their coaching staff in the offseason and had brought in Kliff Kingsbury.
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A former head coach at Texas Tech, Kingsbury was highly complimentary of Murray and even said he would use the No. 1 pick on him were he ever in the NFL and happened to own that selection. As fate would have it, he got the chance to do just that.
While the rumor ended up being true, the Cardinals couldn’t have taken an uglier road to their destination. They refused to commit to a quarterback and allowed Rosen to sit there with a lot of uncertainty around him. They also waited to trade him until after making the pick, which extremely limited their leverage — even more than they already had.
A better route could have been to simply announce that Kingsbury wanted his guy, then they could have spent the next two months talking up Rosen, as they made sure to find him the best home while also getting the best value. In the end, they looked out only for themselves and looked foolish in the process.
Even with all that being true, they somehow came out looking better on the field. Murray is an intriguing prospect and he now has a lot of weapons to work with. Arizona added Andy Isabella, Hakeem Butler and Keesean Johnson to its receiving corps while also landing a potential starting center in Lamont Gaillard.
They even got some defensive help with the addition of Byron Murphy and Zach Allen. Should all these players pan out, no one will remember how ugly it was getting to this point, which is really good for them.