Arizona Cardinals Shift in Philosophy Paying Off

The Arizona Cardinals are cutting down roster turnover and utilizing a new team building strategy emphasizing youth and development.

Jul 29, 2025; Glendale, AZ, USA; Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. (18) during training camp at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Every NFL team has a slightly different strategy when it comes to putting together the best possible product to win games and find success.

Some will lean heavily on free agency to acquire proven talent and quickly build a winning squad. Others will lean into talent evaluation and try to best predict the future ability of athletes coming out of the draft to fill their organization with young potential.

Both strategies have found success in the league. Recently, the Los Angeles Rams famously traded significant draft capital and other resources in their 2022 race to a Super Bowl victory. Meanwhile, the Kansas City Chiefs have been a draft and develop team for awhile that has allowed homegrown players to emerge into superstars and start a dynasty.

Arizona Cardinals Relying on Youth Movement

Arizona Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon watches from the sidelines as they play against the Las Vegas Raiders at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, on Aug. 23, 2025. | Joe Rondone/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Arizona Cardinals, as managed by Steve Keim, fell firmly in the camp of trading resources away for veterans and hoping that it would be enough to lead to success.

To his benefit, sometimes that strategy did pay. One great example is the success that Chandler Jones had after he was traded to the Cardinals in 2016. At other times, a tendency to overpay players near the end of their careers led to debacles like the 13 game tenure of Terrell Suggs in 2019.

In 2023, immediately after Keim's departure as the Cardinals' general manager, the team had the lowerst percentage (45%) of homegrown players on their roster of any in the National Football League. Homegrown here meaning players who originally started their career with the same team.

For the sake of comparison, the league leader that year were the Dallas Cowboys with 83% of their roster considered homegrown.

Monti Ossenfort is notably a very different kind of general manager who has brought a draft and develop mindset to Arizona taking the roster from one of the oldest in the league three years ago to now one of the youngest.

The Cardinals front office has flipped a switch to evaluating college talent and attempting to build a base that will sustain success rather than rely on the occasional injection of talent from older players to keep the franchise relevant.

This sort of process can take quite a long time as older players are phased out and homegrown draft picks slowly accumlate, but it is possible to see evidence of this shift.

Trusting The Process

CB Garrett Williams is the perfect example of the new Cardinals' strategy of finding and developing young talent. | Patrick Breen/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Of the players on the Cardinals' initial 53 man roster released on Tuesday, August 26 thirty of them started their careers with the team. This accounts for 56% of the active roster as currently constructed.

There is a long way to go to match the level of franchises like the Cowboys, but the process is underway. Another sign of this is the amount of draft picks during the Ossenfort regime who still remain.

The Cardinals have selected 28 players in the three drafts from 2023-2025. All but four of these draftees made the most recent 53 man list. While the team as a whole may be only 56% homegrown, the Cardinals have kept 85% of their most recent selections on the team, a sign of belief in the front office's talent evaluation process.

Following this pattern, it is likely that the percentage of homegrown players with the Cardinals will only continue to grow. That means though that the future success of the franchise will be heavily tied to the abilities of the college scouting department and the negotiators in the front office finding ways to keep good players paid and in the building.

So far, the Ossenfort experiment has looked like a fresh direction for a team that struggled for years as the retirement home of the league.

As young players continue to develop a better picture of the viability of this new roster construction strategy will come to light.