{"id":861824,"date":"2026-04-08T23:41:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/861824\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T23:41:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:41:22","slug":"cardinals-draft-target-francis-mauigoa-draws-attention-with-injury-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/861824\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals Draft Target Francis Mauigoa Draws Attention With Injury Check"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6g\">The Arizona Cardinals have plenty of options with their third overall pick, though if you scatter the land of mock drafts across the web, you&#8217;ll find Miami Hurricanes offensive tackle Francis Mauigoa consistently tabbed to the desert. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6j\">The fit makes sense. Mauigoa is the draft&#8217;s top tackle prospect while Arizona has a glaring need at right tackle for 2026 and beyond. Though it wouldn&#8217;t be a conventionally sexy pick, it would fill a massive hole in Arizona. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6m\">And while that still seems to be the case, NFL insider Ian Rapoport <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RapSheet\/status\/2041986943425376576\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">reported<\/a> today Mauigoa is set to have an injury re-evaluated ahead of the draft, which begins April 23. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6p\">&#8220;#Miami OT Francis Mauigoa, potentially the top tackle in the Draft, has decided to be at Combine Rechecks on Friday for additional imaging on a minor back issue that caused him some discomfort late in the season, sources say.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6s\">&#8220;Mauigoa started 42 straight games in college, including all 16 this season, and upon full professional consultation is not considered a candidate for immediate surgery. He did perform fully at his Pro Day and currently is symptom-free. But some teams have asked for additional testing on a disc issue and with nothing to hide, Mauigoa heads to Indy.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>What to Make of Francis Mauigoa Injury News<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6y\">While this doesn&#8217;t need to be blown out of proportion, it&#8217;s certainly not nothing, either. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"71\">It&#8217;s tough to imagine any player is fully healthy after a prominent college football season like Mauigoa had, helping the Hurricanes reach the CFP National Championship. Anchoring Miami&#8217;s right side of the line and facing premier pass rushers will take a toll on his body. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"74\">He played in 16 games for the Hurricanes last season while featuring in 13 games in both his freshman and sophomore seasons. The best ability is availability, and that&#8217;s something Mauigoa has provided. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"77\">Quite frankly, it&#8217;s smart of Mauigoa to not hide any injury concerns and oblige interested NFL teams in getting a recheck. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7a\">For what it&#8217;s worth, Cardinals general manager Monti Ossenfort has never strayed away from players with injury history. You can look at last year in example, stopping Will Johnson&#8217;s eye-opening fall out of the first round while in 2023 he took a gamble on both Michael Wilson and Garrett Williams \u2014 both of which were coming off injury-riddled seasons\/careers at the college level. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7d\">This news wouldn&#8217;t\/shouldn&#8217;t stop the Cardinals from taking Mauigoa in the first round. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Arizona Cardinals have plenty of options with their third overall pick, though if you scatter the land&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2078],"tags":[375,390,2604,1327,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-861824","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-cardinals","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116371736688767636","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861824","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=861824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}