Feb. 22, 2026, 11:35 a.m. MT<\/p>\n
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 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 Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/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 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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 22, 2026, 11:35 a.m. MT It is mock draft season, and NFL.com’s Charles Davis released his first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[31,123,125,124,35423,5139,298,1757,4844,21449,6202,342,332,442,49,78625,17028,300,78626,34],"class_list":["post-164958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-accessfree","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-sstssportsnflcardinals","tag-sstsncardinals","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagarizona-cardinals","tag-tagbig-ten-conference-football","tag-tagcharles-davis","tag-taglas-vegas-raiders","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnfl","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagparis-johnson-jr","tag-tagsmg-listicle","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagwill-anderson-jr","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}