April 6, 2026, 8:58 p.m. MT<\/p>\n
In the NFL draft, teams will end up selecting a mix of players they hope will be able to immediately contribute, while some are meant to develop.<\/p>\n
Granted, developmental players are generally not selected early in the draft. They are usually late Round 3 and later.<\/p>\n
SI.com’s Justin Melo matched each NFL team with their ideal developmental prospect<\/a>. For the Arizona Cardinals<\/a>, it was a quarterback.<\/p>\n LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier<\/p>\n The Arizona Cardinals aren’t going to draft a quarterback at No. 3 overall. Taking a mid-round swing on a naturally gifted quarterback like Garrett Nussmeier would be a worthwhile experiment for new head coach Mike LaFleur. Nussmeier threw 29 touchdowns as a junior before injury and coaching struggles derailed his senior campaign. There’s a talented signal caller in there.<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n Nussmeier would make a decent pick on Day 3, assuming he lasts that long. The Cardinals don’t have a quarterback under contract after 2026. At minimum, he can be a guy who is already in the building in 2027 knowing the offense. If lightning strikes, he is a diamond in the rough.<\/p>\n He certainly has the quarterback traits, although he did throw a lot of interceptions in 2024. There was a time before last season that some believed he could be the No. 1 pick in this draft.<\/p>\n If he is a Day 3 pick and only becomes a backup for a few years, that is still a good use of a Day 3 selection.<\/p>\n We will see if this ends up happening.<\/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 6, 2026, 8:58 p.m. MT In the NFL draft, teams will end up selecting a mix of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2078],"tags":[95878,375,390,2604,1327,7,6,95973,95974,95882,95890,95896,95888,95899,96008,96716,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-858308","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-tagnational-sports","20":"tag-tagnfl","21":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","22":"tag-tagsmg-listicle","23":"tag-tagsports-illustrated","24":"tag-tagsports-news","25":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116361887089463116","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858308","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=858308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}