Jan. 22, 2026, 5:31 a.m. MT<\/p>\n
The Arizona Cardinals<\/a> had a promising rookie class in 2025, especially with their top two picks \u2014 defensive lineman Walter Nolen and cornerback Will Johnson. It was a disappointing season for both, as injuries limited Nolen to only six games, and Johnson played in only 12.<\/p>\n However, Johnson was good enough in those 12 games to be recognized by the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA), comprised of media members nationwide who cover the NFL and its 32 franchises.<\/p>\n The PFWA announced its rookies of the year and All-Rookie team. Johnson was the top rookie cornerback on the All-Rookie team, aloing with Tampa Bay’s Jacob Parrish.<\/p>\n In Johnson’s 12 games, he started 10 times, had 37 total tackles, two tackles for loss, broke up 10 passes and had a forced fumble. He did not have an interception, although he did pick off one pass, only to have it nullified by a penalty.<\/p>\n A healthy Johnson gives the Cardinals hope as a potential cornerstone player in the secondary.<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n Hopefully, this is not the last bit of honors the Cardinals see Johnson get.<\/p>\n Get more Cardinals<\/a> and NFL coverage from Cards<\/a> Wire’s Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0YouTube<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Apple podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 22, 2026, 5:31 a.m. MT The Arizona Cardinals had a promising rookie class in 2025, especially with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2078],"tags":[95878,375,390,2604,1327,7,6,95973,95974,95882,95890,95896,95888,95895,95899,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-698267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-arizona-cardinals","11":"tag-arizonacardinals","12":"tag-cardinals","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnflcardinals","16":"tag-sstsncardinals","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagarizona-cardinals","19":"tag-tagnational-sports","20":"tag-tagnfl","21":"tag-tagnfl-hub","22":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","23":"tag-tagsports-news","24":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115943017385014981","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}