Roster cutdown week always shakes a few names loose, and this one came with a familiar face attached. The Jaguars are moving on from Hunter Long, and the Cardinals are the ones scooping him up.
Jaguars to trade TE Hunter Long to Cardinals. t.co/yFJcRfUotU
The compensation is about as low-stakes as trades get, but the details matter if you're tracking Jacksonville's asset management. Ian Rapoport laid out the full terms: Arizona gets Long and a 2028 seventh-rounder, while the Jaguars get a 2028 sixth back.
Terms: -- #AZCardinals get Hunter Long and a 7th rounder in 2028. -- #Jaguars get a 2028 6th rounder.
John Shipley connected a dot worth knowing: that sixth-round pick coming back to Jacksonville is the same one they sent out in the Quinn Ewers trade. Functionally, the Jaguars turned Long into a small chunk of cap relief plus a future seventh, while still walking away with the pick they originally spent on Ewers. It's not a blockbuster, but it's tidy business for a team clearing out a roster spot.
For Arizona, the move is about need, not name value. Long was a third-round pick out of Boston College who's bounced from Miami to the Rams to Jacksonville, and across 46 career games he's caught just 20 passes. He's not walking into a starting receiving role — he's walking into a blocking assignment. Tip Reiman, the Cardinals' top tight end, is still working back from an ankle injury, and coach Mike LaFleur has been vocal that Reiman was the only tight end on the roster who could truly move defenders at the point of attack. That's the exact hole Long is being brought in to fill, and it doesn't hurt that LaFleur already knows what he's getting — the two overlapped in Los Angeles during the 2023 and 2024 seasons.
Arizona Cardinals officially announce trade for TE Hunter Long and a 2028 7th with Jaguars in exchange for a 2028 6th rounder. The deal is pending a physical. Long played with the Rams in '23-'24 when Cards coach Mike LaFleur was OC
Arizona has been busy at the margins of the roster all weekend — Darren Urban confirmed the club officially announced the deal pending a physical, and Bo Brack noted the Cardinals also flipped running back Corey Kiner to the Patriots for a 2028 seventh a day earlier. None of it is splashy, but it's a front office stacking Day 3 draft capital while patching real depth issues before the season opens.
The deal still needs Long to clear a physical before it's final, so nothing's official-official yet. But if it goes through, he lands in a building with a coach who already trusts his blocking, at a position group that badly needs exactly that while its best player heals up.