3 reasons the Arizona Cardinals should pass on Roquan Smith

With Roquan Smith of the Chicago Bears demanding a trade, Arizona Cardinals fans can feel one of those “Keim Time” trades on the way. Here are three reasons why they shouldn’t expect Smith to come to the desert.

After the Arizona Cardinals sat around all offseason long doing nothing but keeping their head above water after each wave of the Kyler Murray contract drama, it’s understandable why fans of the team want a big move to be made.

But there’s more than one reason the Arizona Cardinals and its fans should not make a trade for the former Georgia Bulldog who was a first-round pick a few seasons ago. Two of these reasons don’t necessarily deal with traditional football terms in themselves, and that’s something we’ll get into.

But for now, let’s start with the obvious:

Roquan Smith is too expensive for the Arizona Cardinals.

It’s easy to see that Smith is one of the best linebackers in the game and can be a tackling machine. Smith has had fewer than 100 combined tackles since entering the league four years ago for the Bears but has not been selected to any Pro Bowls.

Smith has also been pretty good in pass coverage, having two seasons with 67 percent or less completion percentage when targeted. But at what cost does this come to Steve Keim and the Arizona Cardinals?

Trading for Smith would bring his $9 million-plus cap hit to the Cardinals, and with training camp in full swing, it’s hard to get a number on who would be cut and what effect it would have on the cap space itself.

Furthermore, Smith is a free agent after this season. So are the Cardinals truly in “Win Now” mode? Their lack of actions doesn’t make it seem like they are or want to be. And given how the 2023 space is only $23.4M, according to Spotrac, that doesn’t leave much room to keep critical players around.

Those are players like J.J. Watt, A.J. Green, and Devon Kennard. Would Smith’s contract make it difficult to bring all three of them back?

Also, who would be the trade fodder in this deal? Andy Isabella isn’t going to get the job done, despite how badly the Bears need wide receivers after N’Keal Harry’s injury and Allen Robinson leaving for the L.A. Rams.

They would probably want a higher-up wide receiver like Rondale Moore, or perhaps safety help in Jalen Thompson. It would make sense because Eddie Jackson hasn’t done much for the Bears in a while.

Either way, the price is too high for the contract and trade talks.

But that’s not the only reason.