{"id":770994,"date":"2026-02-23T12:24:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T12:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/770994\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T12:24:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T12:24:21","slug":"nfl-mock-draft-arizona-cardinals-land-miami-ot-francis-mauigoa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/770994\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL mock draft: Arizona Cardinals land Miami OT Francis Mauigoa"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is mock draft season, and NFL.com’s Charles Davis released his first mock draft<\/a> of the season. There is no surprise at the top of the draft, as the Las Vegas Raiders<\/a> take Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza.<\/p>\n

And then, with the second pick, the New York Jets take Ohio State linebacker Arvell Reese, which might have been a target for the Arizona Cardinals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Who do the Cardinals get with the third overall pick?<\/p>\n

Round 1, pick No. 3: Miami OT Francis Mauigoa<\/p>\n

The Cardinals must improve on the offensive line under new head coach Mike LaFleur. Mauigoa brings a dose of nastiness to the unit.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals have a huge need at right tackle. Mauigoa is a clear fit. Is he better than Utah’s Spencer Fano? Is a tackle pick better than taking an impact pass rusher like David Bailey out of Texas Tech? The Cardinals passed on Will Anderson in 2023, trading down and getting Paris Johnson.<\/p>\n

Now, it must be mentioned that drafting Mauigoa would mean straying from a three-year trend where the Cardinals have only selected players from the SEC and Big Ten in the first two rounds of the draft.<\/p>\n

One thing that helps is that the Cardinals’ new coaching staff has two assistants who were at Miami last season.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Mauigoa would settle in immediately at right tackle, give the Cardinals two solid young bookends for the offensive line and help whoever is playing quarterback in 2026 be better protected.<\/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

This article originally appeared on Cards Wire: NFL mock draft: Arizona Cardinals land Miami OT Francis Mauigoa<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is mock draft season, and NFL.com’s Charles Davis released his first mock draft of the season. There…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2078],"tags":[375,390,2604,2222,1327,19126,4155,7,7779,96724,393,216,4002,255,6,2299,6957],"class_list":{"0":"post-770994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arizona-cardinals","10":"tag-arizonacardinals","11":"tag-arvell-reese","12":"tag-cardinals","13":"tag-charles-davis","14":"tag-david-bailey","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-francis-mauigoa","17":"tag-indiana-quarterback","18":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","19":"tag-miami","20":"tag-mock-draft","21":"tag-new-york-jets","22":"tag-nfl","23":"tag-texas-tech","24":"tag-the-cardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116119933279334359","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770994","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=770994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}