During the 2023 season, the Arizona Cardinals had a high level of stability on the offensive line.
Right tackle Paris Johnson Jr., right guard Will Hernandez and center Hjalte Froholdt started all 17 games, while left tackle D.J. Humphries started 15. With Humphries released because of a torn ACL suffered in Week 17, Johnson is moving to the left side with free-agent addition Jonah Williams manning right tackle.
That leaves left guard as the only question mark. Last season, Elijah Wilkinson opened the season there, although he did share some snaps early on with Trystan Colon. When Wilkinson was injured in Week 6, Colon started the next two games before he was injured.
Carter O’Donnell started three games and Wilkinson returned for the final three games to give him nine starts for the season.
All four are back on one-year contracts, but also added in the offseason was Evan Brown, who also signed a one-year deal. Brown entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent with the Giants in 2018 and in the last three seasons (two with the Lions and 2023 with the Seahawks), he played 46 games with 40 starts.
Those starts included 16 at center with Seattle last season, to go with 12 at center in Detroit in 2021 and 12 at right guard in 2022.
During offseason work, Brown worked mostly at left guard and is definitely in the mix to potentially start.
Head coach Jonathan Gannon said of Brown, “His football character is awesome. He’s a guy that loves to practice, loves to train. He’s extremely intelligent and he’s a powerful cat. He can apply force into the ground and into his opponent, so that’s been cool to see.”
Brown isn’t taking anything for granted and just loves the competition that might include Marquis Hayes, who was on the practice squad all last season, Jon Gaines II, who missed his entre rookie season because of a knee injury, and Isaiah Adams, a third-round pick this year. It appears some good players will have a difficult time making the team much less start.
As Brown said late in OTAs, “We’ve got a lot of guys who have played a lot of ball and I think that brings competition to the room. No matter what the position is, competition is going to bring out the best of everybody and that’s all you want as a team.
“You want the best 11 out there functioning as a unit and when everybody’s pushing themselves to get a little bit better every day due to competition, it’s only going to bring out the best in the team.”
Part of that is also building unit togetherness on and off the field.
“It’s spending time when you’re in the building together and offensive line-wise, we’re always together,” Brown said. “We’re spending time together outside the building, whether it’s dinners, hanging out, playing games, whatever it may be. It’s just building that camaraderie between the group. You have to do that.
“Anytime you’ve got new guys who haven’t really worked together or don’t really know each other, I think the best way to build up that relationship is spending time off the field to improve the play on the field.”
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