After Defense-Heavy Draft, Cardinals Confident in Offense

The dust has settled on the Arizona Cardinals' 2025 NFL Draft, and there was one clear objective from the front office: Defense.

The Cardinals - after spending heavy money on the defensive side of the ball in free agency - used just one of their seven picks to add to the offense, which came on Day 3 with guard Hayden Conner.

“I think we're trying to upgrade our team everywhere. I think you're always at the mercy of what the supply is. So, we set our free agency board much like we set our draft board, and you try to pick the best spots where we're going to expend our resources," said Cardinals general manager Monti Ossenfort.

"Certainly, we want to increase competition, we want to increase the talent level across all our positions. It just so happens that obviously we wanted to get better on the defensive front, there's no question about that. We had some opportunities to do that. Our needs matched up with what the supply was and free agency and then continued that through the draft.

"We want to improve everywhere across the board. It just so happened that we had more opportunities to do that defensively this cycle.”

There's been a clear effort to improve the defensive side of the ball, which has left some questions on what to make of Arizona's unit led by quarterback Kyler Murray.

Ossenfort says the team expects the offense to take a step forward this season.

“I think the offense will take another jump. I do. We've got some guys coming off injury that are going to be back to help us out," said Ossenfort.

"I think (TE) Trey (McBride) is still an ascending player. I think (WR) Marvin (Harrison Jr.), (WR) Michael Wilson, (WR) Greg Dortch, (WR) Zay Jones, (WR) Xavier Weaver, I think all those guys can take a jump in our offense. I think our offensive line played well last year. I think it's a good group.

"I think that the whole group's going to have a chance to ascend and build on what they did last year. I'm excited to get going on that here as on field activities start here over the next week.”

Arizona didn't really make tweaks to their core of offensive players, which sputtered down the stretch of the 2024 season.

There's hope continuity can help the Cardinals' offense reach new heights - Arizona is certainly banking on it.