2022 NFL Draft: Where would Cardinals pick if the season ended today?

Heading into Week 12, what selection would the Arizona Cardinals have in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft if the season ended today?

After their first 11 games of the 2021 season, the Arizona Cardinals are sitting with a 9-2 record and the top seed in the NFC. Much of Arizona’s success this year has been due to the efforts of several players they’ve acquired during the NFL Draft, including Kyler Murray, Rondale Moore, Isaiah Simmons, Byron Murphy, Christian Kirk, Chase Edmonds, and Budda Baker.

Unlike the Los Angeles Rams, the Cardinals place a lot of value on their draft selections each year. You have to go all the way back to 1995 to find an NFL Draft where Arizona didn’t have a pick in the first round.

During the last few years, several of the Cardinals‘ first-round selections have come within the first 15 picks of the draft. With the way Arizona has been playing this season, one should expect their top selection in the 2022 draft to be slotted in the later part of the first round.

What pick would the Arizona Cardinals have in the 2022 NFL Draft if the 2021 season ended today?

As the only team in the NFL with just two losses through the first 11 weeks of the 2021 campaign, the Cardinals would have the highly sought-after No. 32 pick in the first round of the 2022 draft if the season ended today.

Why is the selection highly sought-after? Well, it’s typically the pick in the first round that belongs to the team who won the previous season’s Super Bowl.

So Arizona wouldn’t mind one bit having this first-round selection next year if it was due to them getting the franchise’s first-ever Super Bowl victory.

Despite their current slot being at the very bottom in the first round, the Cardinals would still have plenty of talented prospects to choose from, including South Carolina pass rusher Kingsley Enagbare, Texas A&M tight end Jalen Wydermyer, Washington cornerback Trent McDuffie, and Texas A&M running back Isaiah Spiller.