With many players injured at the end of 2024, the Cardinals are pretty healthy in OTAs.
The Arizona Cardinals began the final phase of their offseason program on Wednesday with the first day of practice of voluntary OTAS (organized team activities). One question that always comes up is the health of a team. Because it is the offseason, teams are not obligated to report or disclose injury information. Head coach Jonathan Gannon said he would start talking about injuries in Week 1 when the first official injury report is released.
But we can get a general feel for the health of the team based on participation of the players who ended the season hurt.
Things look good so far.
While veterans like defensive linemen Dalvin Tomlinson and Calais Campbell, offensive linemen Kelvin Beachum and Hjalte Froholdt and outside linebacker Josh Sweat were not present in the open part of Wednesday’s practice, because it was voluntary to be there and none of them finished the season injured, we will not speculate that they are hurt.
But let’s look at the players who ended the season missing games and whether they were practicing Wednesday.
RB James Conner (missed season finale with knee injury): participatedRB Emari Demercado (finished season on IR with back injury): participatedWR Michael Wilson (missed season finale): participatedOL Paris Johnson (finished season on IR with knee injury): participatedOL Jonah Williams (finished season on IR with knee injury): working to the sideDL Justin Jones (IR with triceps injury): participatedDL Bilal Nichols (IR with neck injury): participatedOLB BJ Ojulari (IR with ACL tear, missed entire season): participated
It would seem that everyone who finished the season injured with the exception of Williams are cleared and should be good to go for the season. That is good news.
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.