The Arizona Cardinals have not made any moves in free agency to address their wide receiver room except for re-signing exclusive rights free agent Antoine Wesley. Christian Kirk departed in free agency to sign a huge contract with the Jacksonville Jaguars and A.J. Green remains unsigned.
It is for this reason that NFL Network’s Peter Schrager has the Cardinals locked in at receiver with their first-round pick.
Schrager’s first mock draft of the year has them going with Penn State wideout Jahan Dotson.
I don’t see a scenario in which the Cardinals take a defensive player on Day 1 after selecting linebackers in the first round of the previous two drafts and losing Christian Kirk this offseason. DeAndre Hopkins and Rondale Moore are the team’s current WR1 & 2. I can 100 percent see Arizona going receiver here. Dotson is the top one left on the board.
For context, Schrager is close with Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury, so he does have some insight to what the team is thinking.
A receiver makes sense and Dotson does make sense at some level. He has inside/outside versatility. He can move and can run. He had a huge 2021 season, catching 91 passes for 1,182 yards and 12 touchdowns in 12 games.
However, the Cardinals are not a team that locks in on any one position in the first round. Passing on pass rusher George Karlaftis or athletic defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt to take the sixth-best receiver in the class doesn’t seem like a move GM Steve Keim would do.
If one of the top five receivers (Drake London, Jameson Williams, Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave and maybe even Treylon Burks), picking a receiver makes a lot of sense.
Dotson could be a solid selection but feels like it would not match up with the Cardinals’ first-round draft strategy of the last several years.
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