Arizona Cardinals CB Will Johnson impresses in first NFL game

Johnson broke up three passes and had an interception that was negated by a penalty.

Call it the Arizona Cardinals‘ hot seat.

It is the seat next to safety Budda Baker in the meeting room, and it became a topic of conversation Thursday when Baker was asked if he might give rookie cornerback Will Johnson some help on the field for the game against the Saints because of the steep learning curve for rookies.

Baker first said, “I think Will’s a great rookie, great player. He understands it.” He then said, “He sits next to me in meeting rooms. So I definitely try to question him or ask him if he has any questions because, as a rookie, you don’t really want to slow down the pace of meetings. Might not want to ask this question. You might know it, but you don’t really know-know it. So, if he stutters, I might ask the coach, ‘What is this?’

“He’s a very smart player though. Very excited for him. A guy who came from Michigan, so he’s played big games and I just told him this is the NFL. As long as you know your job, you got here for a reason. And I’m very excited to play with Will and definitely excited for him to get his first time playing in a real football game in the NFL.”

Baker was then asked if there is a race to the seat next to him and safety Jalen Thompson.

“Oh, no. No,” Baker said. “I’m usually by myself, I might just look at someone and be like, ‘Come on, come sit right here. Sit right here.’ I think those guys don’t really want to be in the way and for me as a vet, I just welcome them in with open arms because at the end of the day, you’re only as strong as your weakest link.

“And I’m not saying anyone’s weak, but I’m nine years in. I know a little bit about football. So if I think that my knowledge can help them and if they have questions for me or if I have questions for them, they’re open arms. So it’s great.”

Is that what you did with Will, Budda?

He said, “Yeah. I saw Will sitting right there (pointing). It’s like, ‘Come on over here, brother. (Knocks on podium.) Come sit right here.’ So, yeah, we have the same agent, too (David Mulugheta). So, being able to text him when he got drafted and just tell him I was excited for him to be here, it was special.”

Baker also explained that will be Johnson’s seat for the entire season.

When head coach Jonathan Gannon was asked about the special seat Friday and how beneficial that can be, he said, “Budda’s seen a lot. He’s played a lot of ball. He’s a really good player. He’s smart, so he knows all the whys behind everything that we do. He’s like another coach. So, that’s all our meeting rooms, but I tell the coaches that’s a very interactive meeting room anyhow. If you’re not ready to go when you walk in that meeting, you’re going to get picked on pretty quick and probably rookies even more so. So, he probably falls into that.”

Fast forward to Sunday when Johnson had a pass defensed on the Saints’ first pass play of their first possession.

“My first play getting that PBU definitely settled me in,” Johnson told the team’s radio network after the game. “Just trust in the game plan, trust in the call that my coach put me in.”

That was the case in the fourth quarter when he read a play perfectly and delivered close to a knockout blow on Saints wide receiver Chris Olave that resulted in an incompletion.

“I trusted the preparation. And when I saw it, I just went and reacted,” he said.

Baker said, “We practiced that exact play in practice, so our coach, (coordinator) Nick Rallis, he gave the corners, he said, ‘If it’s an A and go, I give you the liberty to just jump it.’ And that’s what Will did. Will is very smart (points to his head). He remembered that, what Nick said, and he jumped it.”

“I thought he played pretty good,” Gannon said. “One time, he wasn’t on the right guy. It happened quick, but just a little late getting to it, but I thought he held his own. That was one of the keys to victory. No balls over our head and I thought we did that today.”

Johnson also had a first-quarter end-zone interception taken away on a deep pass from quarterback Spencer Rattler to wide receiver Rashid Shaheed when cornerback Max Melton was flagged for a questionable penalty for illegal contact.

Even quarterback Kyler Murray participated in the praise, saying, “I love the way Will played today. Obviously, they snatched one from him. I wanted that for him, too. First game, get a pick. That’d be tough. But he played well.”

Johnson was targeted seven times, but allowed only 32 yards on four completions, according to ESPN, and ended the game with a solo tackle and three passes defensed.

His play helped the Cardinals limit New Orleans to success on only 5-of-14 third-down attempts and one red-zone touchdown, while limiting Rattler to a 7.4-yard average on completions to his wide receivers. On four of those red-zone trips, the Saints came away with all of their 13 points.

Baker concluded on the radio postgame show, “He was locking up on his receiver, whoever that was, and he did a great job in communicating. That was a great game for him.”

Get more Cardinals and NFL coverage from Cards Wire’s Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify, YouTube or Apple podcasts.