A Cardinals and Calais Campbell reunion would be perfect for Arizona in 2024

Out of all 32 teams in the NFL, the Arizona Cardinals are one of the youngest teams in the league. While they have some notable veterans like Kyler Murray, Jonah Williams and Budda Baker, the Cardinals are fairly young across the roster. There is not a lot of older leadership currently on the team. That could change if the Cardinals made the decision to pursue free agent defensive end Calais Campbell.

Campbell was drafted by the Cardinals in the second round of the 2008 NFL Draft. While he was a consistent player throughout his  tenure with Arizona, he did not truly shine until the last three years of his career with the Cardinals. Aside from his rookie season, Campbel was always around the 6-7 sack mark per year, with his highest being 9 sacks in a season with the Cardinals. In 2017, Campbell entered free agency and went across the country and signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars where he became a member of “Sacksonville” and had back-to-back double digit sacks from 2017-2018. 

Since then, Campbell has been a member of the Baltimore Ravens and played with the Atlanta Falcons last year. He played in all 17 games with the Falcons and even racked up 6.5 sacks as an older edge rusher. With him still showing that he can produce the minimum, the Cardinals need to capitalize on the opportunity to bring him home for potentially one last season.

With Arizona having such a young team, especially on defense, it would make perfect sense to bring in Campbell’s leadership but also get some production as well upfront on the defensive line. Monti Ossenfort signed veteran defensive linemen Justin Jones and Bilal Nichols in free agency and would then draft Darius Robinson to help bring a pass rush from the outside. Pairing Robinson with a player like Campbell who has had lots of success in this league would be a perfect starting point of his career.