Odegard: After Inexcusable Start, Monti Ossenfort Aces Day 1 of Draft

The biggest day of Monti Ossenfort’’s professional life could not have started out any worse.

The Cardinals’ new general manager failed to follow simple rules during the head coach hiring process, and an illegal phone call with Jonathan Gannon resulted in a costly third-round pick swap with the Eagles.

The news was announced mere minutes before the draft, likely so it would get buried by the avalanche of action to come.

And sticking with the theme, I was ready to bury Ossenfort and the Cardinals for such an egregious mistake.

Should change their name to the Cardinalllls because of all these Ls recently. https://t.co/7RPANXEXi0

— Kyle Odegard (@Kyle_Odegard) April 27, 2023

But something happened within the next two hours to flip the script: Ossenfort absolutely nailed Day 1 of the draft.

The Cardinals not only made the smart move in trading down from the No. 3 overall selection, but they played the game well enough to extract maximum value from the Houston Texans, who moved up from 12 for edge rusher Will Anderson.

According to draft value charts, the Cardinals’ trade of 3 and 105 for 12, 33, a 2024 first- and a 2024 third-rounder extracted a surplus value of a first-round pick from Houston.

Seriously this is probably one of the worst draft day trades we've seen in the past decade, if not more. What are the Texans doing https://t.co/IH88DR97YI

— Computer Cowboy (@benbbaldwin) April 28, 2023

Not only that, the charts give the 2024 selections mid-round value, but they could be so much more than that.

The Cardinals and the Texans each have over/under win totals of 5.5 games at DraftKings for 2023, tied with each other for the lowest in the NFL.

Maybe quarterback CJ Stroud and Anderson make a huge difference, but if they have pedestrian rookie seasons, that Houston pick could end up extremely valuable.

Houston also owns Cleveland’s first-round pick in 2024 following the Deshaun Watson trade, and while it’s unknown if that pick was first offered, Ossenfort did a tremendous job of getting Houston’s first-rounder in the deal.

He wasn’t done, of course.

Arizona jumped right back up from 12 to 6 to draft Ohio State’s Paris Johnson, Jr., a potential franchise left tackle to protect Kyler Murray for years to come.

Johnson is impressive physically and seems to be a great character guy.

"We're going to make you an Arizona Cardinal Paris"

📞 @ParisJohnsonJr pic.twitter.com/D77PczlgCi

— Arizona Cardinals (@AZCardinals) April 28, 2023

Meanwhile, the Cardinals’ trade with Detroit of 12, 34 and 168 for 6 and 81 was a small loss on various trade value charts, but an understandable one if Johnson pans out at one of the most important positions on the field.

Will Johnson be a perennial Pro Bowler? No one knows.

But the process was sound, and that is such a wonderful departure from Steve Keim’s preponderance of head-scratching first-round decisions during his tenure as GM.

At one point this week Johnson was the betting favorite to be the No. 3 overall pick in the draft.

The Cardinals ended up getting their guy, and also held onto the first- and third-round picks from Houston next season.

Ossenfort’s first draft day couldn’t have started out more poorly. It ended up beautifully.