Arizona Republic sports columnist considers a possibility that’s more real than you might think.

The Arizona Cardinals could go defense with the top pick in the draft.

No, seriously.

All this Kyler Murray vs. Josh Rosen stuff could be a straight-up smokescreen intended to drive up value and assess the trade market.

A team ‘wide open to move it up’

It could be a ploy to trade down with the Raiders, get a few picks and still nab a dominant inside force that helps a 3-4 defense get disruptive.

“Pretty well documented we have a lot of needs, and we’re doing all we can to address ’em,” Raiders coach Jon Gruden said recently at the NFL owners’ meetings.

“We are wide open to move it up,” he said later. He’s got three first round picks to sweeten any deal he might put together.

So, trade with Oakland. Slide back to No. 4 and get a pick or a few for later in the draft.

Then Gruden grabs Murray.

The 49ers take Ohio State’s Nick Bosa at No. 2. (Which is widely predicted in the inexact world of mock drafting – the sacred art of the educated guess.)

The Jets, who need an edge rusher the way a pancake needs syrup, take Kentucky’s Josh Allen or Houston’s Ed Oliver with the third pick, and bam, Cardinals General Manager Steve Keim picks Alabama defensive tackle Quinnen Williams.

Or — and stay with me now, because this one gets tricky — Keim could draft Williams with the first pick.  

OK, one more defense-first scenario. Ready? Draft Bosa.

Keim isn’t talking so we don’t know what he’s thinking.

Kingsbury, however, isn’t shy.

“They’re both dominant players,” he said of Williams and Bosa at the owners’ meetings. “They’re can’t-miss prospects.”

Cardinals players won’t give up too much.

David Johnson, on the first day of the team’s strength and conditioning workouts, was asked how he would feel if the team selected Kyler Murray.

“I like Josh,” he said.

Of course, immediately after that Johnson also said, “it’s a business,” which is athlete-speak for, “trades happen, and there’s nothing that’s gonna change that.”  

Finding ‘that force in the middle’

Defensive end Chandler Jones, meanwhile, might have some relevant thoughts.

He said he would love to play alongside a disruptive interior guy.

“That’s tremendous,” he said. “That’s tremendous.”

And then he said, “We have those guys on our roster. I’m not Steve Keim, so I’m not sure what we’re gonna do in the draft. … But when you have that force in the middle, the quarterback can’t step up, it makes the edge rush easy. All you have to do is beat your guy and run by him and there’s a sack, right there. That’s tremendous to have as an edge rusher.”  

Williams also would address the problems Arizona had stopping the run last year. 

The Cardinals were dead last in rushing yards allowed (2,479) and rushing touchdowns allowed (25, five more than any other team.)

The knock on the idea of going with Williams is that it’s not wise to spend big money on his position. The theory there is that the best guy at nose tackle can only help a team so much. Better to go with a cheaper player and spend more on a quarterback, wide receiver, corner or edge rusher.

Aaron Donald, however, has proved just how disruptive a guy can be from the middle. He had 20.5 sacks and four forced fumbles last year for the Rams.

No one could rightfully expect that type of production from anyone else, but Williams, playing in the SEC, had 71 tackles, 19.5 tackles behind the line of scrimmage and eight sacks.  

As for Bosa, the Cardinals have Jones, one of the best outside defensive linemen of his generation. And they just signed Terrell Suggs, who had seven sacks last season at age 36.

Do they need another guy at that spot? Then again, Boas had six tackles, four sacks, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery touchdown in three games last year at Ohio State. Three games.

The bigger concern with Bosa is injury history. He blew out a knee in high school and last year had some sort of abdominal and groin injury that required surgery.

Football is far too physical to take chances on guys with injury histories. His brother Joey Bosa is a force for the Chargers, when he’s on the field. The elder Bosa missed four games as a rookie and nine games last season.

Look, no one knows anything this time of year. That’s the fun, and that’s the whole point.

Take if from Johnson. “We don’t know what’s going on and what they’re talking about, as far as draft picks. Just come ready to play. … and let the chips fall.”

For the rest of us, we’ve got to think it through to figure out what we’d do if we were Steve Keim.

And there’s a real chance he could be thinking defense.

Reach Moore at [email protected] or 602-444-2236. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @WritingMoore.

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