Are the Arizona Cardinals about to Trade Down?
Smokescreens, Blinking Signs and the Matt Prater Butterfly Effect
The term ‘butterfly effect’ is usually reserved for instances in which one cannot know the all of the long-term repercussions of an action. How even the lightest flutter of butterfly wings can have a mighty knock-on effect. You tip your server more than usual, meaning they can afford rent that month, providing a safe and secure home for their kid, who then grows up to become Seinfeld star Jason Alexander. You couldn’t have known that in tipping that little bit extra, you were directly creating George Costanza, spreading countless moments of joy and laughter amongst generations of people, flooding the internet with dozens, and I mean dozens, of relatively funny memes. You couldn’t have known. That’s the butterfly effect in full-display. I think. Conversely, when Matt Prater missed two game-winning field goals against the Seahawks on the final day of the 2023 regular season, condemning the Cardinals to a 4-13 record, moving us from the 5th pick in the draft, to the 4th, essentially securing the rights to Marvin Harrison Jr, we all knew, deep-down somewhere visceral, somewhere dark, that we’d have to deal with rampant discussions around trading down this off-season.
“A big neon sign that says Open”, proclaimed Monti Ossenfort when discussing the number 4 pick in a recent press conference. We had had months of speculation, but we finally heard it from the horses mouth. The Cardinals are openly, calmly, intently discussing trading down. From the response this news elicited from Cards fans, you could have been mistaken for believing we had already traded the number 4 pick and in return received a 2025 3rd, Zach Wilson and three buckets of popcorn. The shock. The unmitigated horror.
I’ve a newsflash for you all. Every team discusses trading down in the draft. Every reasonable team anyway, Steve Keim wasn’t the biggest fan of it. Point out a competent NFL General Manager who tells you there is no price at which they would trade down from their first-round pick and I’ll point out a big, smelly liar. You’re telling me that if the Minnesota Vikings offered up Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, Christian Darrisaw, pick 11, pick 23, first rounders in 2025, 2026, 2027 and a nice retail unit in the Mall of America that you’d be happy for Monti to say “thanks, but no thanks, we’ll take our chances with this guy we think will be awesome but can’t know for certain”? You’re crazy, you’re delusional and I really admire your self-confidence. Yes, that Vikings offer is maybe a little rich for Minnesota, just a smidge over the top. But if a team truly wants to pay way over the odds to trade up for a QB at 4, then it is only prudent for the Cardinals to have a chat with them. It might be quite valuable to own the future draft picks of a team that desperate. And we’d get to spend the year rooting against JJ McCarthy, a hopefully significantly more enjoyable experience than rooting against CJ Stroud.
“I don’t like it blinking, it messes with my eyes”, was the end of that sentence from Monti I quoted earlier. A small nod to the fact that almost everything we hear from (competent) NFL GMs, especially in the off-season, is nonsense. Well, not nonsense. It’s propaganda, self-serving, loaded with half-truths and designed with a narrative in mind. Think ‘any politician’s speech, ever’. It does not serve the Cardinals, nor their fanbase, for the rest of the NFL to actually know the intention with the number 4 pick. Monti could have received a vision from your personal favourite lord and saviour telling him that MHJ is the second coming of Larry Fitzgerald, Jerry Rice and Luke Skywalker all rolled into one ‘can’t miss’ wide receiver prospect that will receive 14 consecutive first-team All-Pro honours and bring balance to the force and he still wouldn’t tell the media that he’ll be selecting him at pick 4. Because that wouldn’t benefit the Cardinals. It’s not Monti Ossenfort’s job to abate fans’ fears that we might trade away from the chance to draft a generational receiver talent, it’s his job to ramp up speculation, seek out a bidding war for that pick in case someone offers such value that can’t be refused. And if no one does, he can stick and pick Marvin Harrison Jr. Both sound like good options to me.
If there’s some way to trade down, and then back up to 5 for MHJ, that would be ideal obviously. Similar to selecting Paris Johnson Jr last year, the Cards select the player they would’ve anyway, and pick up some draft capital in the process. But there’s a couple of reasons why I don’t think this is a realistic proposition. Firstly it sounds too good to be true. Simple. This is a competition, people. Are multiple teams really going to conspire to pay the Arizona Cardinals to select the player universally regarded as the best (non-QB) prospect in the draft? Secondly, if the Cardinals aren’t there to take MHJ at 4, are the Chargers really going to pass on him at 5? Have you looked at their wide receiver room recently? If the Chargers don’t currently have the worst receiver group in the league, then it’s only because the Cardinals do. “But Jamie, the Chargers are telling the media that they’ll be picking an offensive lineman with their top pick”. Oh really? Read that previous paragraph again. That one just up there. Telling the world you’ll be selecting an offensive lineman is exactly what an NFL GM would do if they wanted another wide receiver needy team to trade-out of the pick directly ahead of them.
In a recent Chuck Harris Twitter poll, 76% of voters would prefer the Cardinals stick and pick Harrison Jr and 23% preferred a trade-down. One voter actually claimed the Cards should trade up and select Josh Rosen, but I don’t think we need to pay much heed to ‘@definitelynotstevekeim’. If it’s between an ethereal and mysterious ‘trade-down’ and MHJ, give me Marvin any day of the week. Some part of my irrational fan brain tells me we should take him regardless of the offers. He’s perfect. I love him. But I guess that’s partly why I’m not an NFL GM. There’s a price that will be too good for Monti to turn down. If someone pays up, it could set the Cardinals up for years to come with a cornucopia of tremendous prospects. That sounds just fine as well.
If you made it this far, I appreciate you. This column was more of a stream of consciousness therapy session for myself than any sort of structured article. If you did make it all the way here, please consider subscribing for free. Only together can we decipher the butterfly effect and save George Costanza.