Cardinals’ Second-Round Pick Screams One Thing for 2026

TEMPE — The Arizona Cardinals' second-round pick made their intentions for 2026 extremely clear.

After taking running back Jeremiyah Love yesterday, the Cardinals began Day 2 festivities with offensive guard Chase Bisontis from Texas A&M.

Bisontis will likely compete with Isaiah Adams at right guard for immediate starting duties, though he's played at right tackle previously in his college career.

Through two picks of the 2026 NFL Draft, Arizona's plans have become quite obvious under head coach Mike LaFleur: Run the damn ball.

The Cardinals' rushing attack ranked second to last in terms of yards per game last season while other metrics such as run stuff rate (eighth-worst in the NFL) and yards averaged before contact (just outside the bottom ten) last year showed an obvious hole.

Arizona's ability to run the ball — or lack thereof — was due to various factors. Injuries to both the running back room and offensive line contributed to the downfall as well as simply falling behind early in games and being forced to pass.

This offseason, Jonathan Gannon was fired before the offensive mastermind in LaFleur arrived shortly after. While the sexy dreams involve route concepts and getting Trey McBride, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Michael Wilson the ball, the hope was to also revamp the Cardinals' rushing attack.

With the draft's best running back and the second-rated guard (per The Athletic's rankings) that goal was made crystal clear.

“Running back, receiver, tight end—there's no secret in this league explosives are massive. When you look outside of obvious points, what are the two biggest factors statistically, it's turnovers and explosives," LaFleur said after adding Love.

"It's actually closer than you'd think, and so any time and any way you can generate explosives, that's a good thing for the offense. Anytime you can obviously limit explosives from a defense, that's a good thing for the Arizona Cardinals. When you bring in explosive playmakers at any position, you're giving yourself a better chance to have those explosives. I don't have to call the greatest plays sometimes when you just get the ball to a guy like (TE) Trey McBride, he breaks three tackles and he turns it into an explosive.

"Same thing with our receivers, so anytime you can get that from the backs, it's just that next position that allows you to get those explosives."

While we haven't gotten to speak with LaFleur or Cardinals general manager Monti Ossenfort just yet, Bisontis' profile as a nasty interior presence bodes well in the desert.

Bisontis says he's excited to get to work immediately against a running back he experienced watching first hand.

"It's gonna be awesome blocking for him. We played him this year, and he made our defense pay too, so it's gonna be awesome to play with him," Bisontis said.

While the premier stars will get all of the limelight and attention, Arizona's first two picks in the draft give a very obvious statement: They're looking to run the ball in 2026.

Add us as a preferred source on Google