April 1, 2026, 10:59 p.m. MT
The Arizona Cardinals have kept the knee injury that 2025 first-round pick Walter Nolen suffered shrouded in secrecy. Why? Who knows.
But there is good news. While many speculated that he suffered a torn ACL in December when he went down with a knee injury and had to be carted off the field, we know that it is something far less serious.
He tore his meniscus, according to a video on TikTok that his girlfriend, Tyler Nelson, posted on Jan. 11. While she was telling her viewers about getting ready, she noted why there was a chair in the shower. It is because Nolen “tore his meniscus and had to get surgery and so now this is how he showers,” she said.
AZCentral.com’s Theo Mackie noted that meniscus surgery can have a recover time of three to six months, and that is good news. It means that he could be fully cleared sometime before the end of the offseason program. He should definitely be ready to go by training camp, which will begin in the back half of July.
If Nolen is expected healthy by the start of the season, the offseason moves the Cardinals made on the defensive line make sense. They signed Roy Lopez to a two-year contract and added veterans Jonah Williams and Andrew Billings to one-year deals, also re-signing L.J. Collier. The Cardinals will expect a healthy Nolen to be the primarty playmaker, along with 2024 first-round pick Darius Robinson. Everyone else will be rotational depth.
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