Five NFL trades that won’t happen… but probably…

Cardinals get: IDL Fletcher Cox
Eagles get: Arizona’s second-round pick in 2022

The Cardinals were a legit 7-0 before they welcomed the Packers to the Valley of the Sun, and while their great pass defense did a nice job of keeping Aaron Rodgers in check, the loss of J.J. Watt to a shoulder injury — a loss that could be season-ending — will be a problem for a team with real Super Bowl aspirations.

“I think a guy like that’s irreplaceable, right?,” head coach Kliff Kingsbury said after the Cardinals’ first loss of the season last Thursday night, when the Packers blew that defense apart with 34 rushing attempts for 151 yards and a touchdown. “I mean, he was having a heck of a season. It’s unfortunate that it happened, but we’ve got to get some other guys to step up and you’ve got to give Green Bay credit. They had a good plan. They possessed the football, didn’t turn it over, and we had three and they found a way to win. I expected us to get a heavy dose of #33 (RB Aaron Jones) and the young back’s a good player as well. So, they had a good plan. They ran the play clock down and Aaron (Rodgers) protected the ball and got completions and they were real effective with their offense.”

The Cardinals will need reinforcements both in the interior run defense and the interior pass rush without Watt, and Philadelphia’s Fletcher Cox has not been happy of late. The veteran has expressed his displeasure about where he’s deployed from snap to snap, and how he’s asked to cover screens when he’d rather be rushing the passer. First-year defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon has said that he gets Cox’s points, but this has also blown up into the idea that other teams are trying to trade for Cox.

Cox is in the middle of the 6 year, $102.6-million extension he signed in 2016 — he’s under contract through the 2023 season, with void years in 2024 through 2026. He has a full cap charge of $12,916,409, and the Cardinals could probably handle the prorated version of that with a little movement. Cox isn’t the player he once was, but he’d help keep the Cardinals on their potential Super Bowl track. As for the Eagles, it’s not as if they’re a playoff team anyway, and the Cox trade could offload some financial responsibility, and add to their considerable 2022 draft haul.