2023 NFL Team Draft Page

For the fifth time in its franchise history, the Arizona Cardinals will pick third overall in the NFL draft. Their past #3 overall picks have netted mostly good results, including Simeon Rice in 1996, Andre Wadsworth in 1998, and Larry Fitzgerald in 2004. The Cardinals will search for their next legend in the 2023 draft as they say goodbye to another one. Their new pick will likely be J.J. Watt's replacement on the defensive line, with big shoes to fill almost immediately. Either Will Anderson or Jalen Carter, the likely candidates, will be compared ad nauseam to Watt after he seemingly left the game with still a lot left in the tank, starting all 16 games and securing the sixth season of his career with 10+ sacks.

The one making the final decision on that pick will be newly hired General Manager, Monti Ossenfort, who made headlines in his first press conference, sternly declaring that "ego will not be tolerated in this organization." We'll see.

Ossenfort is the franchise's first outside hire for General Manager in nearly three decades, working as director of player personnel for the Titans since 2020. Before that, he worked with the New England Patriots starting in 2006, starting as an area scout before moving up to assistant director of college scouting and finally a director of college scouting before moving to Tennessee. With Ossenfort, Arizona also hired new Assistant GM Dave Sears, the Detroit Lions' Director of College Scouting. With these additions, the franchise has emphasized scouting and obtaining the right players as they begin their rebuild from a highly disappointing season to round off an extremely frustrating era of football.

New faces for a new era. The first pick of many is likely to be an easy one. But the Cardinals have a lot of holes to fill on both the offensive and defensive lines as well as deciding whether to replace an aging and expensive core. It's a baptism by fire for the new front office while the hunt for the head coach to replace the Thailand-bound Kliff Kingsbury continues.