April 1, 2026, 11:16 p.m. MT<\/p>\n
The Arizona Cardinals<\/a> have done some work this offseason in free agency, but have not improved their roster much. At most positions, they could and probably should add players in the NFL draft.<\/p>\n But looking at each position, where in the draft should they be looking? While teams always want to stick to their draft board, sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to draft a position early.<\/p>\n We will look at each position group and determine what need level the Cardinals have \u2014 is it in Round 1? Is it on Day 2? What about Day 3?<\/p>\n Let’s look at the inside linebacker.<\/p>\n Cardinals draft need level: Inside linebacker<\/p>\n The Cardinals released Akeem Davis-Gaither and did not re-sign J.J. Russell or Channging Tindall. They signed Jack Gibbens to a two-year contract. Mack Wilson returns after a rib injury that sidelined him the final nine games. He will return as the starting “Mike” with Gibbens and 2025 rookie Cody Simon competing for the other job.<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n They have Owen Pappoe and Austin Keys returning as depth.<\/p>\n Draft need\/priority: Round 3 or later. Inside linebacker isn’t a premium position and they have players they like already.<\/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":"April 1, 2026, 11:16 p.m. MT The Arizona Cardinals have done some work this offseason in free agency,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[95878,7,6,95973,95974,108396,95882,95890,102188,95896,95888,95899,109540,96008,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-848837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sstssportsnflcardinals","12":"tag-sstsncardinals","13":"tag-tagakeem-davis-gaither","14":"tag-tagamerican-football","15":"tag-tagarizona-cardinals","16":"tag-tagjack-gibbens","17":"tag-tagnational-sports","18":"tag-tagnfl","19":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","20":"tag-tagowen-pappoe","21":"tag-tagsmg-listicle","22":"tag-tagsports-news","23":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116334122818477782","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848837","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=848837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}