Cardinals to have their smallest rookie free agent class in last decade

Jess Root
·2 min read

The Arizona Cardinals have not yet announced any rookie free agent signings. There won’t be many.

In fact, they will have fewer undrafted rookie signings this year than any year in the last decade.

Thus far, in terms of media reports of undrafted rookies, the Cardinals have added four players — a pair of tight ends, a defensive tackle and a cornerback.

That is all the room on the roster they have. After the retirement of tackle Marcus Gilbert, they had 78 players on the roster. They drafted seven players, were awarded Austrian tight end Bernhard Seikovits and that leaves only four roster spots.

That is way fewer than normal.

Here are the numbers for rookie free agents after the draft for the last nine21 years.

  • 2012: 17 rookie free agent signings

  • 2013: 16

  • 2014: 15

  • 2015: 14

  • 2016: 16

  • 2017: 17

  • 2018: 24

  • 2019: 12

  • 2020: 21

So what is different this year?

General manager Steve Keim said they had far fewer prospect reports this year. Because of the pandemic and opt-outs, there simply are fewer players the Cardinals trust. So instead of adding a bunch of undrafted rookies after the draft, the Cardinals did most of their back-end additions to the roster before the draft. In April, the signed five players. They signed a bunch to futures contracts in January.

Rather than go after rookies, they targeted players they have likely scouted over the last two or three years who have not been able to stick to an NFL roster yet.

So training camp will be different this year. There won’t be nearly as many cool undrafted rookie stories that come up.

Listen to the latest from Cards Wire’s Jess Root on his podcast, Rise Up, See Red. Subscribe on Apple podcasts or Spotify.

Latest show:


Previous shows:


and