5 players who could be entering their final season with the Cardinals

Ezekiel Turner – LB

Ezekiel Turner has had a very, very quiet three years in the desert. Through his time so far, he’s struggled to get onto the field and actually get playing time. With only one start in 44 career games, he’s amassed 37 combined tackles, with 15 of them being solo.

However, Turner made his mark in the 2020 season by making huge plays against the San Francisco 49ers in Week 1 and against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 15. In both games, Turner blocked a punt. Also in that Eagles game, Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury gambled with a pass on a fake punt late in the matchup, and Turner converted the fourth down in a gutsy daredevil move.

The reason Turner truly makes this list is we’ve seen a “special teams ace” leave Arizona before. In fact, that happened in March when the team let Trent Sherfield sign with the division-rival 49ers. This was the term Kingsbury used to describe Sherfield, and the fact that both of these two guys could be gone by 2022 shows you the microcosm that is the Cardinals’ special teams.

There hasn’t been a kickoff return for a touchdown by an Arizona player since 2015, and a Cardinals punt return touchdown has also been absent since 2014.

We’ll see if Turner gets a true chance to stay or not, as he’s also behind Isaiah Simmons on Arizona’s depth chart.