Markus Golden went from being in a bad mood, to asleep, to excited, to scrambling to pack. A second-round pick by the Cardinals in the 2015 draft, the linebacker had taken a nap and woke up to quite a few missed calls.
"I kind of went to sleep in a bad mood, man, I'll be honest with you," he said.
The calls were from his agent and from the New York Giants, the team he joined in 2019. He knew what the calls meant: He had been traded. He just needed to know where, and by the time he heard that, he was wide awake.