Cardinals 2022 Draft: Three-round mock to remain an NFC contender
What will the Cardinals address on draft day?
Despite being a double-digit win team in 2021, the Cardinals have more than their fair share of holes on their roster. These holes are really one of the main factors that played into Arizona’s late-season collapse in 2021.
While most of the Cardinals’ needs are minor in just the acquisition of depth, some of them are much more glaring and need to be addressed quickly.
Defensive Line
After future Hall-of-Famer, J.J. Watt, went down with a serious injury in the middle of the season, Arizona’s defensive line got exposed game after game. The Cardinals’ run defense was impacted the most as the team couldn’t stop the run to save their lives.
Not to say the pass rush wasn’t affected as well, Arizona’s only real source of pressure on the quarterback after Watt went down came from guys like Michael Dogbe, who is a depth piece, and Jordan Phillips, who is susceptible to injury.
This unit needs to be fixed this offseason if the Cardinals want to go anywhere in the future.
Cornerback
To the surprise of absolutely no one who follows Arizona, their cornerback room is very thin. While the Cardinals enjoyed a breakout season from Byron Murphy and a comeback year from Robert Alford, this ultimately didn’t save the rest of the cornerbacks from being constantly picked on, and once Alford went down to injury, all bets were off.
Steve Keim seems to have found a Day 3 gem in Marco Wilson out of Florida, but this cornerback room still has a long way to go.
Edge Rusher
Once thought to be one of the most terrifying pass rush groups that the NFL had to offer, ended up not meeting their expectations in 2021. After an unbelievable start to the season by Chandler Jones, the Cardinals sack king went a whopping seven games without recording another sack, finally doing so in the eighth game, which was against the San Francisco 49ers.
With the future of Jones very much in doubt, the Cardinals need to look to capitalize on a very good edge rusher class and come away with at least one prospect who can put the quarterback on the ground consistently.