Jan. 20, 2026, 4:33 a.m. MT<\/p>\n
The Arizona Cardinals<\/a> are in the middle of their search for a new head coach, but it is the offseason, and with the end of the college football season, we can firmly begin to look at the 2026 NFL draft.<\/p>\n The Cardinals have the third overall pick in the 2026 draft, giving them many options. Will they be able to select a quarterback? Probably not one worth a first-round pick, but we do have a new mock draft<\/a> from Draft Wire’s Curt Popejoy.<\/p>\n Who is the Cardinals’ pick?<\/p>\n Arizona Cardinals, No. 3 pick overall: Ohio State LB Arvell Reese<\/p>\n Reese is a do-it-all linebacker who can dominate on the inside or line up and rush the passer.<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n Reese was an All-American in 2025. He had 6.5 sacks, 10 tackles for loss, two pass breakups and 69 total tackles.<\/p>\n He is a great off-ball linebacker and can rush the passer. He is expected to be a top-five pick in the draft. Considering the Cardinals’ question marks at both the defensive edge and at linebacker, Reese would make sense, and the Cardinals with their four first-round picks in the last three years, have only taken players from the SEC or the Big Ten.<\/p>\n Reese fits the bill.<\/p>\n Get more Cardinals<\/a> and NFL coverage from Cards<\/a> Wire’s Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0YouTube<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Apple podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 20, 2026, 4:33 a.m. MT The Arizona Cardinals are in the middle of their search for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2078],"tags":[95878,375,390,2604,1327,7,6,95973,95974,95882,95890,95930,95896,96758,95888,96683,95895,95906,96008,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-696294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-arizona-cardinals","11":"tag-arizonacardinals","12":"tag-cardinals","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnflcardinals","16":"tag-sstsncardinals","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagarizona-cardinals","19":"tag-tagbig-ten-conference-football","20":"tag-tagnational-sports","21":"tag-tagncaa-big-ten-conference","22":"tag-tagnfl","23":"tag-tagnfl-draft","24":"tag-tagnfl-hub","25":"tag-tagoverall-positive","26":"tag-tagsmg-listicle","27":"tag-tagsports-news","28":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115938837432405577","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}