Trades galore in Arizona, difficult 2023 ahead?

It was a busy Thursday for the Arizona Cardinals this week, as the team was involved in three trades which could have a big impact on their prospects for the 2023 season.

The first trade was sending linebacker Isaiah Simmons to the New York Giants in return for a 2024 seventh round pick. Simmons, who was the No. 8 overall selection in the 2020 NFL Draft, is entering the final year of his rookie contract after Arizona declined his fifth-year option earlier this offseason.

It was obvious that Simmons and the Cardinals were not a match made in heaven, and he was a guy who clearly didn’t work for what it want to do on defense. Getting anything in return for him is a positive, but the complete lack of return on a first-round pick is incredibly low. For the Giants however, this deal feels like a low risk, potentially high reward if they can get the best out of the versitile defender in New York. They, not the Cardinals, seem on paper to have won this deal.

Hours after the Cleveland Browns announced Joshua Dobbs as their backup quarterback for 2023, the QB, who played for the Tennessee Titans in 2022, is suddenly a candidate to be a starting job in Arizona, who traded for the player alongside a 2024 seventh-round draft pick in exchange for a 2024 fifth-rounder.

He’s a decent addition, but questions will be asked why a player at 28, who has only started a handful of NFL games in his career, has justified sacrificing a fairly valuable fifth round pick for a team that is looking to rebuild.

Elsewhere, the Cardinals have let Josh Jones, who had 11 starts last year, leave to the Houston Texans as well as a seventh-round selection next year, in return for a fifth rounder. The 26-year-old was a third-round pick of the Cardinals in 2020 out of Houston, so this trade is something of a homecoming for the former Cougar.

Having used the No. 6 overall pick to select Ohio State offensive tackle Paris Johnson Jr. in this year’s draft, Jones was clearly surplus to requirements in Arizona, but again the return for what they spent to acquire the player is fairly minimal.

Tanking year ahead?

They won’t admit it openly, but the front office is making moves like a team that doesn’t expect to be competitive in 2023, fuelling speculation that they are hoping to land a top talent in the 2024 NFL Draft, such as USC’s Caleb Williams.

It’s an incredible change of fortune for a team that started a season 7-0 just two years ago in 2021. But with injuries to key players like Kyler Murray and a lack of progress across the roster, it looks like the Cardinals are entering a full-reset stage.

It has been a busy few months for new general manager Monti Ossenfort, who has inherited a tricky situation in Arizona having taken the role in January. His eyes, and those of the franchise as a whole, seem firmly on planning for the future, rather than the present.