Three ways the Seahawks can guarantee they land Will Anderson in the draft

Plan two: Seahawks hope the Cardinals are still stupid

Now for this to work, the four teams picking ahead of the Hawks obviously can't take Mr. Anderson. If that name invokes images of incredible skill, you remember the Matrix quite well. When the Hawks draft him - and they will - I'll refer to him only as The One. So, back to business. The current draft order is Panthers, Texans, Cardinals, Colts, then the Seahawks. It's no secret that Carolina traded up for the Bears' top pick to grab a QB. The Texans need a quarterback as well. So far, so good. That leaves just two problems for Seattle: Arizona and Indianapolis.

The Colts are a bit of a wild card but are still expected to go after a quarterback with the fourth pick. I mean, Matt Ryan, Nick Foles? Please. That leaves the Cardinals as the main stumbling block between the Seahawks and Will Anderson. Arizona is enamored with QB Kyler Murray, despite the fact that he's coming off his worst season ever. He's also coming off an ACL injury and is expected to miss several games this season. Despite that, the Cards are committed to Murray for at least the next two seasons. His dead cap space for 2023 is over $97 million and over $81 million in 2024, so there's no way the Cards will invest in a QB in this draft.

Add that the Cardinals lost both J.J. Watts and Zach Allen this off-season, and it's obvious they need to shore up their defensive line. Arizona did add L.J. Collier to their roster, but as far as Seattle is concerned, that amounts to addition by subtraction. If the Cards don't draft either Anderson or Carter with that third pick, they might as well rehire Steve Keim and just phone in another decade. Bring back Kliff while you're at it, too.

So the question amounts to this: will the Cardinals draft Carter, the man with as many red flags as tackles for loss? Or will they go for the more certain prospect, Anderson? Maybe, just maybe, the fact that Carter is more similar in size to both Allen and Watt will push the Cards toward him. They played around 285 or 290, and Carter weighs in at 314. Well, he does when he bothers to work out. Anderson is much smaller, at 243 pounds. Still, I can't trust the Cardinals to continue their stupidity. The new guys can't be as bad as the old ones, right?