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Good Beginning, Rough End With Rodney Hudson

Trade for center worked but injuries undercut stay

The trade for Rodney Hudson made sense.

A third-round pick for a veteran center (and a seventh-rounder coming back) that could help Kyler Murray at the line of scrimmage? Yes. That's what the Cardinals got. But Hudson was banged up at the end of 2021, and he considered retirement last offseason, before finally deciding to return for another year.

Hudson had concerns his body would hold up. It turned out he was right. The season didn't play out like he or the Cardinals would have hoped, with Hudson appearing in just four games.

It drew attention later Tuesday afternoon when a host of NFL players were officially on the personnel notice as cuts with "June 1" designations. That's a move to let teams alter how these players' dead cap money will be distributed -- technically, J.J. Watt was "released" as well.

Watt, of course, has retired. Hudson too is expected to retire after a 12-year NFL career. If he does, he will be the third Cardinal who had played at least 10 NFL seasons, after Watt and A.J. Green, to call it quits after spending 2022 with the Cardinals. Hudson started the first four games of 2022 before knee issues kept him out five games, and then the team finally placed him on injured reserve in early November.

Now the center position, again, becomes a priority. Billy Price started there most of 2022 but GM Monti Ossenfort is expected to look elsewhere. The Cardinals have been searching for a long-term answer at the position ever since Lyle Sendlein, whose career spanned 2007-2015.

Arizona Cardinals offensive lineman Rodney Hudson (61) during the 2022 regular season game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Carolina Panthers on Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022 in Charlotte, NC.
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