{"id":266884,"date":"2026-02-24T06:37:59","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T11:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=266884"},"modified":"2026-02-24T06:37:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T11:37:59","slug":"cardinals-emerge-as-favorites-for-qb-malik-willis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2026\/02\/24\/cardinals-emerge-as-favorites-for-qb-malik-willis\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals Emerge As Favorites For QB Malik Willis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Impending free agent quarterback Malik Willis will likely have a big market once the legal tampering period begins, and early reports indicate the Arizona Cardinals are the frontrunners for his services. While teams can’t technically reach out to free agents or their representatives at this point, it’s not a strongly enforced rule by any stretch of the imagination.<\/p>\n

While multiple teams will be pursuing him, Tony Pauline of Essentially Sports<\/a> reports the Arizona Cardinals will be heavily interested in the free agent. This makes sense, as the Cardinals will move on from Kyler Murray in the coming months and don’t stand a realistic shot of landing Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza<\/a> in the 2026 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

Cardinals Among Favorites For Malik Willis<\/h2>\n

Malik Willis spent the past two seasons as Jordan Love’s primary backup<\/a> and only made three starts in the quarterback’s absence. However, he’s been nothing short of phenomenal in those relief appearances. While his time in Tennessee left a lot to be desired, Willis looked like a legitimate franchise quarterback in Green Bay’s system. During his time in Wisconsin, the quarterback completed 78.7% of his passes for 972 yards, six touchdowns, and no interceptions while adding 261 yards and three touchdowns on the ground.<\/p>\n

Nobody expects Malik Willis to maintain that ridiculous level of efficiency over an extended sample, but he has shown the potential to be a legitimate franchise quarterback. The Cardinals need one of those, as they’re not getting enough out of veteran Kyler Murray. Murray is a top-32 quarterback in the league, but he’s a mid-level starter getting paid like a superstar. Quite simply, you can’t consistently win games with an unremarkable player taking up that much salary space.<\/p>\n

Malik Willis might be the top option for the Cardinals, but they’re far from the only team in search of his services. The Pittsburgh Steelers, Minnesota Vikings, Miami Dolphins, and New York Jets all need a quarterback, and Willis is easily the best one on the open market. If the Cardinals can’t get him, they’ll need to find a Plan B.<\/p>\n

Main Photo: Mark Hoffman – Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Arizona Cardinals need a new quarterback, and recent reports indicate impending free agent Malik Willis may be the man for the job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2376,"featured_media":266885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,33,6431],"tags":[7801,8559],"class_list":["post-266884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-news","category-cardinals","category-nfl-teams","tag-arizona-cardinals-news","tag-malik-willis"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2376"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266884"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266921,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266884\/revisions\/266921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}