3 free agents who could start for the Cardinals in 2021
By Adam Patrick
Steven Nelson – CB
2020 Team: Pittsburgh Steelers
Arizona’s cornerback room has experienced several significant changes during the last few months.
This offseason, the Cardinals saw Patrick Peterson, Dre Kirkpatrick, Kevin Peterson, and Johnathan Joseph walk out the door. To make up for the departures in the secondary, Arizona added some veteran corners from free agency in Malcolm Butler and Darqueze Dennard.
The Cardinals also decided to give Robert Alford one last shot to see if he can stay healthy and help their defense. Even with the additions of Butler and Dennard, Arizona could still probably use another cornerback with starting experience before the start of the 2021 season.
Steven Nelson is a guy who would be a great addition to the Cardinals’ current group of corners. Nelson spent the last two seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers on a defense that ranked among the NFL’s three best teams against the pass in both 2019 and 2020.
He also spent his first four seasons in the league with the Kansas City Chiefs, where he developed into a reliable starting cornerback.
With Nelson, Arizona would get a better starter than Alford to pair with Butler, and what he learned from playing in one of the NFL’s top pass defenses during the last two years could be shared with some of the team’s younger corners like Marco Wilson and Tay Gowan.