Arizona Cardinals: Offensive line camp preview
By Scott Allen
The Arizona Cardinals offensive line was a huge reason for team production drop off last season
The offensive line of the Arizona Cardinals must improve over last season. The improvement needs to mainly come in pass protection.
Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer was running for his life most of the season. He was sacked 40 times after being sacked just 25 in 2015.
To be fair, the line had more than just performance issues. They also had a lot of health issues. Those issues caused a lot of movement along the line and a large amount of personnel coming in and out.
In the offseason, the Cardinals were steady with who they already had on the roster but went and added two more linemen in the NFL Draft. They got what some consider a steal in guard Dorian Johnson and tackle Will Holden.
Although not set in stone, there has been much talk about moving Jared Veldheer from left tackle to right tackle. He went on injured reserve last season after getting injured in the loss to the Carolina Panthers on October 30th.
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Moving over to left tackle was D.J. Humphries. He seemed to perform better at the left tackle position. If they leave him there, that means Veldheer would need to move to right tackle.
Training camp should be interesting this season with the offensive line. The center position, which has A.Q. Shipley as its current starter, also has second-year player Evan Boehm. In all, the Cardinals have five players on the roster that can play center if needed.
Roster predictions:
Starters: Center – Shipley, LT – Humphries, RT – Veldheer, RG – Cole Toner, LG – Mike Iupati
Backups: Center – Boehm, T – Holden, Wetzel, G – Johnson
The Cardinals have the luxury of having a few players who have the versatility of playing in more than one spot on the line. Boehm can play guard and center.
The Cardinals could decide to keep Troy Bergstrom as the backup center and then keep Boehm over at guard to back Iupati up. We guess now but we will know how it all plays out by September 10th.