As we enter the lone remaining hibernation period on the NFL’s calendar, there is one lingering question for which I’m struggling to find an answer: Why aren’t we talking more about the cataclysmic impact the Cardinals could have on this NFL season?
Think about the most important benchmarks on the coming NFL calendar (the trade deadline, free agency and the massively anticipated 2024 draft), and ask yourself how Arizona could avoid becoming a major player in all three. It all comes back to Pepe Silvia.
Last week, when commemorating the 100-day mark until Week 1 by making 100 predictions for the NFL season, I wondered what might happen if the Cardinals got the No. 1 pick. My thinking in bringing it up was that Kliff Kingsbury is now working with prospective top pick Caleb Williams at USC. Kingsbury, the former coach of the Cardinals, burned out with a franchise that also fired its general manager, was clobbered by an independent player survey for poor working conditions and was sued by one of its former top personnel executives (not to mention careless enough in its attempts to fix the problem that it got whacked with a tampering violation before the draft). Is it too far-fetched to think Kingsbury might tell Williams to pull an Eli Manning? No. Is it likely, given that Jonathan Gannon and Monti Ossenfort seem to be doing their best to turn the Titanic around before it finds solid ice? Probably not. But, that doesn’t mean there aren’t layers to this situation worth examining.
