Cardinals ship Kiner to Patriots for a 2028 pick
Arizona dealt Corey Kiner to New England hours after closing the preseason with a 42-38 shootout loss to Green Bay, thinning a backfield that still doesn't know who starts Week 1.
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The running back logjam in the desert broke Saturday morning: Arizona is sending Corey Kiner to the New England Patriots for a seventh-round pick in 2028, his agents Adie von Gontard and Don Williams confirmed to ESPN's Adam Schefter, as Cardinals Trade Corey Kiner To Patriots For 2028 Pick lays out. Kiner managed 12 carries for 58 yards and two catches for 15 down the stretch as a rookie, and he now projects as the Patriots' third back behind Rhamondre Stevenson and TreVeyon Henderson.
Trade: Cardinals are sending RB Corey Kiner to the New England Patriots in exchange for a 7th-round pick in 2028, per his agents Adie von Gontard and Don Williams of @YMAPAASports.
It's part of a bigger Saturday purge than one trade suggests. Coach Mike LaFleur told reporters after Friday's finale that his staff had already sketched the 53 assuming the game against Green Bay wouldn't move the needle — "there were a few conversations that were going to be had, and you went into it saying if it were to end before this game, here's our 53," he said, per azcardinals.com — and running back Trey Benson landed right back on injured reserve with the same knee that limited him all camp.
None of it settles who actually starts at running back. Tyler Allgeier sits atop the last published depth chart with rookie Jeremiyah Love next, and James Conner's foot is still "too early to tell" for Week 1, LaFleur said Wednesday, per Theo Mackie of the Arizona Republic — which is exactly why a team that just traded a back still isn't settled at the position.
Evan Hull put on a show while the finale slipped away, 42-38
Arizona closed the preseason the way it opened it — in a shootout in Green Bay, only this time on the wrong end. Packers quarterback Kyle McCord threw for 226 yards and four touchdowns, including two to Kisean Johnson in the final three and a half minutes, as Green Bay erased an 11-point deficit for the 42-38 win Friday night, per the Associated Press.
Packers38-42
Cowboys13-34
Raiders27-14The names worth remembering are the ones fighting for the back of the roster. Evan Hull ran for 107 yards on 16 carries — a 47-yard score in the second quarter and a 1-yard plunge in the third — the kind of night LaFleur was still talking about afterward: "all our backs have performed really well, whether it be in practice or these games, so he's a tough dude," per azcardinals.com. Simi Fehoko caught a 41-yard touchdown from Gardner Minshew to open the second quarter and added a 9-yard score from Kedon Slovis in the fourth, calling the stretch run "a little bit of bittersweet" with cuts looming, per azcardinals.com.
It wasn't clean elsewhere. Elijah Higgins caught two of three targets for 15 yards before leaving with a concussion, and Ihmir Smith-Marsette sprained an ankle and didn't return, per Darren Urban of the Cardinals' official site — two more items for a training room that already has Tip Reiman out for the start of the season and Xavier Weaver on injured reserve.
Brissett's the guy; Beck's rib injury is burying the fight for QB2
LaFleur made this call weeks ago: Jacoby Brissett is the Week 1 starter when the Cardinals open at the Chargers. Arizona re-signed him on a reworked one-year deal reported at $15.5 million guaranteed — up to $21 million with incentives — a jump from the $4.88 million he'd been ticketed for, per Yahoo Sports and CBS Sports. Nothing about the preseason finale changed that math.
The scramble is for QB2, and it isn't going well for Carson Beck. His ribs, hurt in the Hall of Fame Game, have buried him behind both Brissett and Gardner Minshew in practice reps, as Carson Beck's rib injury is killing his QB1 dream laid out this week. Minshew, for his part, made the case a No. 2 wants on record before cuts: seven of nine for 126 yards and a touchdown against Green Bay on Friday, with a 10-yard sack the only blemish. If Beck can't get right by the roster deadline, that's the résumé LaFleur is staring at.
A road trip to open the year, against a Chargers team built around Herbert staying upright
The regular season opens with a Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles against the Chargers at SoFi Stadium, and the board has Arizona as an underdog — the line opened with the Chargers favored by 10.5 points, with the total set at a middling 46.5.
The Chargers get there off a 1-2 preseason, dropping their finale 18-20 to the Rams in a game Justin Herbert started at Jim Harbaugh's direction, according to Chargers.com's own training-camp coverage. Harbaugh has kept Herbert's exhibition workload deliberately light all summer — one series in the preseason opener — while Khalil Mack and Tuli Tuipulotu have been the two names dominating camp practice reps up front, the same team site reported.
For a Cardinals team still sorting its own backfield and its own QB2, opening on the road against a division winner's quarterback who barely broke a sweat in August is not the easiest way to find out what September 13 actually tells you.