The biggest news coming out of OTAs for the Arizona Cardinals on Wednesday was the arrival of quarterback Kyler Murray to OTAs. It was a big deal, but he wasn’t the only player who had been absent from this voluntary part of offseason work.
Several other key players on offense arrived to the team’s Tempe headquarters to participate in OTAs for the first time. Those players included receiver Marquise Brown and three offensive line starters — D.J. Humphries, Justin Pugh and Kelvin Beachum.
“A lot of starters back,” head coach Kliff Kingsbury said after practice Wednesday. “I thought the work was good, spirited. It was nice.”
Having Murray and those other guys back in the facility and on the field with their teammates helped, especially coming after the tragedy of losing teammate Jeff Gladney.
“I think having those types of veteran presence around in a time like this is definitely huge,” Kingsbury said. “All those guys are great leaders — the Pughs, the Beachums, the Humps, Kyler — that have been a part of this. It helped getting back to normalcy some. Definitely anytime you can get around those guys, I thin the younger players gravitate toward them and probably feel better about the whole situation.”
The Cardinals have two more practices of OTAs scheduled this week and then four next week before having three days of mandatory minicamp June 14-16.
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