TEMPE – The following is a press release from the Arizona Cardinals:
The Arizona Cardinals Football Club today announced that the team has agreed in principle to acquire safety KERRY RHODES from the New York Jets in exchange for Arizona’s fourth-round selection in the 2010 NFL Draft and seventh-round draft choice in 2011.
Rhodes (6-3, 214) spent the first five years of his career with the Jets after being selected in the fourth-round (123rd overall) of the 2005 NFL Draft out of Louisville. He started 78 of 80 regular season games and has collected 411 tackles (313 solos), 15 interceptions, five forced fumbles, five fumble recoveries, 43 passes defensed, and nine sacks.
He had 62 tackles (48 solos), three interceptions, 13 passes defensed, and one fumble recovery while starting in 14 of 16 games played in 2009 for a Jets defense that ranked #1 in the NFL overall and against the pass. He also started all three postseason games for the Jets and was a big factor in the team’s advancement to the AFC Championship game.
"We all know that the safety position was a hole we needed to fill,” said Cardinals head coach Ken Whisenhunt. “To be able to do that so quickly and with a proven starter off the NFL's #1 defense is a tremendous positive for our football team. Kerry has the experience and ability to step in right away. He fits a lot of the things that we do defensively and the prospect of having him alongside a perennial all-pro like Adrian Wilson is very exciting."
