GLENDALE – A week away from the NFL draft and Arizona Cardinals general manager Monti Ossenfort and head coach Mike LaFleur spoke to the media on Thursday, giving some clarity towards the franchise’s plan. The biggest story entering the draft for Arizona isn’t even the third overall pick, it’s whether Ossenfort will trade back into the first round to select Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson.

The Cardinals have heavy interest in Simpson, reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter, and it could make a trade up from 34th overall into the first round. Ossenfort is known for keeping his agenda close to his chest, but he did confirm one thing on Thursday: No QB starter has been named.

Arizona Cardinals general manager Monti Ossenfort during a pre-draft news conference on April 16, 2026, at the Arizona Cardinals training center in Tempe.

Ossenfort assessing the quarterback situation ahead of draft:

“We’re not really naming anybody, and we’ll see how that room looks by the time we get [to] August. That’s where we are right now. And I think that with every position that we have, we’re going to look to add competition. Whether that’s the draft, whether that’s after the draft, there’s [a] player acquisition period that never ends.

“We’re going to always look to improve every room no matter what it is. So that’s where we are right now. Is that how it looks going into training camp? I don’t know. We’ll see.”

Arizona Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur during a pre-draft news conference on April 16, 2026, at the Arizona Cardinals training center in Tempe.

LaFleur later confirmed Ossenfort’s sentiment, stating the team isn’t focusing on naming a starter this early in the offseason. The competition, as of now, is Jacoby Brissett and Gardner Minshew. Brissett started 11 games last year and helped the franchise move on from seven-year starter Kyler Murray this offseason. The 33-year-old performed well in his starts, but still finished 1-11.

Minshew has a similar career archetype to Brissett, early starting opportunities but soon fell into a career backup role. Each are capable QBs under center to run an NFL offense but isn’t enough to win at a high level, which Arizona seems fine with because of its projected cap space in 2027.

Feb 24, 2026; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Arizona Cardinals general manager Monti Ossenfort speaks at the NFL Scouting Combine at the Indiana Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

The number will be over $100 million, and add in a expected high draft pick to select from a much better quarterback class, Ossenfort is in a good position. However, will the fourth-year Cardinals general manager actually be there to see the vision play through? Unclear if the roster underperforms yet again under his watch.

The fear of job security could have Ossenfort take a reach at Simpson in the first round to try and show owner Michael Bidwill there is a hopeful prospect under center for fans to believe in. His words on Thursday help buy into that narrative, and he could look towards Simpson, as the second-ranked quarterback in the draft, to be a savior of a roster that just went 3-14.

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Reporter Tanner Tortorella covers general assignment for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on his X account, @TannerTSports

Virgin Voyages has reached out to cruisers who were upset about not only a recent itinerary change but the way it was handled. Acknowledging their misstep, the line essentially promised to do better moving forward.

Why Some Cruisers Are Upset

Rarely are those about to set sail happy to hear about itinerary changes, as they tend to be less desirable than the originally scheduled route. That was most definitely the case for most passengers booked upon the Valiant Lady’s April 6 sailing out of New York City.

Originally intended to be a five-day trip to Bermuda, passengers were informed a few days before embarkation that they would, instead, be sailing north to Canada due to a possibility of bad weather. Adding insult to injury, at least in the eyes of some, was the borderline cheeky way in which Virgin addressed the itinerary change.

“St. John will feel a little bit different from Bermuda,” read one segment of the letter, “with crisp, coastal air and a completely new backdrop to explore. You may want to bring a few extra layers.” 

Of course, for some cruisers, the warning came too late as they had already flown into New York City from other locations. While many did their best to roll with the proverbial punches, some made their complaints public — with a few related Instagram vids garnering a whole lot of attention.

“We’ve Seen Your Messages” 

Facing the situation head-on, if a tad after the fact, Virgin Voyages posted a response to unhappy sailors via their Instagram page. “Welp,” it began. “That Bermuda-Canada email really wasn’t it. We’ve seen your messages, and we get it.” 

The missive continued: “This wasn’t the trip you were planning for — and we should have spoken to that reality. We understand why you’re disappointed. We agreed we need to do better, and next time we will.”

It concluded by saying, “Itineraries can change for safety, but you deserve us to be real about it when they do.” 

“This Situation Is Not Funny to Me” 

In a separate Instagram post featuring a photo of the dark side of the moon, Virgin again addressed the original email. And as is their wont, they did so in a typically sardonic manner. “We missed the mark. So NASA, if you want to fly our team to the moon next, we’ll gladly stay there and hide behind some moon rocks. (We’ll make sure to bring extra layers, too.)”

Not everyone however, saw the humor. One commenter acknowledged it was a “fun social media post” before asking “But what are you doing to make the situation right? This post alone just feels like you’re making fun of the situation.” 

One passenger who’d been on board the Canada-bound sailing didn’t see the humor in the situation. “I was on that voyage and extremely disappointed,” they wrote. “I feel that the refusal to issue refunds and $100 per person [onboard credit] per person was wholly inadequate… you should have cancelled the cruise or allowed us to get a refund. Sorry, but this situation is not funny to me.” 

I’m a bit late to update you on this, but BSCB has had the honour of featuring in the April 3 issue of French weekly magazine Auto Plus. The article, using BSCB data, is actually the very first article in the magazine (!) and lists the Top 3 best-sellers in 23 markets over the Full Year 2025, from South Africa to Vietnam and including Morocco, Ethiopia and Qatar. The entire feature stresses the difference between markets and goes through unique ones such as Andorra. It was a great pleasure to provide the data to Cédric Morançais who wrote the article. Thank you Auto Plus!

Alaris Security announced the launch of Startup Shield, a program offering VC-backed startups 50% off the Alaris Enterprise Platform for 12 months. The program is a direct response to a recent breach at a $10 billion AI recruiting startup, which exposed 4TB of sensitive data and affected more than 40,000 individuals.

The breach was not caused by a zero-day exploit or an advanced persistent threat that required nation-state resources to execute. It started with a compromised open-source package, moved through stolen VPN credentials, and ended with the complete exfiltration of candidate databases, video interviews, source code, and internal communications. The entire attack chain played out over four days. No internal system flagged it. The startup learned about the breach when the attackers posted the data publicly.

This pattern is not unique to one company. Fast-growing startups routinely collect sensitive data well before they have the security infrastructure to protect it. The gap between what a startup holds and what it can defend is where breaches happen.

What Startup Shield Includes
Qualifying startups receive the full Alaris Enterprise Platform at 50% off for 12 months. This is not a stripped-down tier or a limited trial. It is the same platform deployed by enterprise and defense organizations.

• Autonomous SOC: AI agents that triage, investigate, and respond to security alerts 24/7 with no tier-1 analyst headcount required.
• Endpoint Security: Real-time behavioral detection across all managed endpoints, with process tree visibility, credential access monitoring, and persistence detection.
• Detection Engineering: Detection-as-code rules maintained by AI agents, continuously tuned and updated as threats evolve. No manual rule management.
• Cloud Security: Sub-second detection across cloud environments with agentless or lightweight sensor deployment.
• Threat Hunting: Continuous AI-driven threat hunting across endpoint, network, identity, and cloud telemetry.
• Dedicated Onboarding: A Alaris security engineer assigned to each startup for the first 30 days to integrate existing tools and establish baselines.

Who Qualifies
Startup Shield is open to startups that meet all of the following criteria:

• VC-backed (Seed through Series C)
• Fewer than 1,000 employees

There is no revenue requirement. The 50% discount applies for the full 12-month term regardless of growth. Startups that grow beyond the eligibility criteria during the program continue to receive the discounted rate through the end of their term.

Why This Matters Now
The breach is part of a broader pattern. The TeamPCP supply chain campaign compromised five ecosystems (GitHub Actions, Docker Hub, PyPI, npm, and OpenVSX), affecting an estimated 500,000 machines across more than 1,000 SaaS environments. The Axios npm package, with 100 million weekly downloads, was compromised the same week by a separate North Korean threat actor.

Startups are disproportionately exposed to these attacks. They move fast, aggressively pull in dependencies, and typically lack dedicated security operations. Most cannot justify the cost of an enterprise security platform until after an incident forces their hand. Startup Shield closes that gap before the incident happens.

“That breach was preventable. Every stage of the attack chain produced detectable signals. But you can only detect what you’re monitoring. Most startups aren’t monitoring anything. We want to change that before the next headline,” said David Colombo, Founder & CEO, Alaris Security.

 

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