Heading into the 2026 NFL season, the Arizona Cardinals are favored to land the No. 1 overall pick in the 2027 NFL Draft. They are currently projected to win over/under 3.5 games this year; that would actually be a slight improvement over last year's 3-win season that resulted in the No. 3 overall pick, ultimately turning into talented Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love.
Love is arguably the most talented prospect in the class with a legitimate chance at Offensive Rookie of the Year. He's still not the solution to Arizona's seemingly never-ending quarterback problem.
Sooner or later, the Carson Beck preseason hype will fade, and Cardinals fans will face the unfortunate reality that this team still doesn't have the most important position in football figured out.
Arizona's best chance to fix that issue once and for all could come in that 2027 class, headlined by Texas quarterback Arch Manning.
Arizona's brutal schedule, which stems from being stuck in the stacked NFC West, could actually help their long-term outlook in this case. That said, there's already one direct competitor emerging before the season has even started, and that's the Miami Dolphins.
Dolphins are already threatening the Cardinals' race to the bottom
Omar Kelly of the Miami Herald reported that the Dolphins' practice on Tuesday... didn't go so well.
Dolphins practice is over. The Dolphins offense was a disaster. They were so bad Malik Willis got the team together for a talk midway through. It didn’t help.
— Omar Kelly (@OmarKelly) August 25, 2026
Kelly did recently note that Wednesday's practice went much more smoothly.
However, I wouldn't consider this a sign of a turning point or of things to come. Tuesday's version of the Dolphins, in all likelihood, is better aligned with what to expect from this team throughout what could very well be a long season.
Gone are the days of offensive guru Mike McDaniel calling up plays for Tua Tagovailoa to give De'Von Achane, Jaylen Waddle, and Tyreek Hill room to operate out in space.
Achane is the only one of that group who remains in Miami, and the Dolphins fully intend on utilizing him as the bell-cow back. Besides his undersized frame, another concern with that is game script, seeing as Miami will be playing from behind far too frequently to establish a consistent run game.
The same applies for Arizona, though fortunately both teams have talented three-down pass-catching backs in Love and Achane.
While that's a skill set commonality every other team envies, there are also some concerning parallels between Arizona and Miami's rosters.
Both are in the midst of a rebuild and embracing a new era under different head coaches. Both are in search of that long-term answer at signal-caller, with realistic hopes of finding it next offseason.
At least there project to be potentially franchise-altering quarterback options at the top of the draft beyond the headliner Manning, including Oregon's Dante Moore or Notre Dame's CJ Carr.
But given how many offensive weapons Arizona has and where they are in their rebuild, this upcoming draft is the window to land a quarterback that they absolutely can't afford to miss. It's only August, but Miami's incompetence is already threatening to derail those plans.
Hopefully Manning, Moore, and Carr all turn out to be the top prospects in the actual draft, because it's increasingly looking like the Cardinals may not be the worst team in the league this season.
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