The Arizona Cardinals are in their offseason and looking ahead to 2025.
But while we’re in the offseason, it’s time to look back at the 2024 season and reward player performance.
On the podcast, we discussed player accolades and superlatives. We will now put our choices in written form.
We continue with the team’s most reliable player for 2024.
Who was the Cardinals Defensive Player of the Year? Howard Balzer and I give our picks.
Cardinals’ most reliable player in 2024
Jess Root: OT Kelvin Beachum
Beachum ended up playing a much bigger role than expected. He was supposed to be the deep tackle. He ended up starting 12 games, nine at right tackle when Jonah Williams was injured, then three at left tackle after Paris Johnson went down.
He struggled in Week 1 when Williams was injured, but after that he was solid. He played 742 total snaps on offense and was only flagged once all season for holding. Although he wasn’t expected to start every game, he was the guy the coaches could count on and not panic when their tackles fell.
Howard Balzer as K Chad Ryland
Full disclosure, I seriously considered center Hjalte Froholdt for this honor, noting that he played 1,078 snaps (98%). However, Ryland’s unexpected consistency after replacing the injured Matt Prater was a big part of the Cardinals’ improvement to eight wins in 2024.
It started in Week 5, when Ryland made the first of three game-winning field goals in four weeks against the San Francisco 49ers. This came after a previous 42-yard attempt was blocked and optimism was not high for the 2023 rookie who has been on fire with the New England Patriots.
His next two games came in back-to-back games against the Los Angeles Chargers and Miami Dolphins, both with no time on the clock. Ryland connected on 13 of his first 14 attempts and even during a three-game stretch where he missed an attempt in every game, he still made eight in those games and then closed out the season in hitting nine in a row with passes of 48, 49 twice, 51 and 58.
For the season, he was 28-of-32 (87.5%) and 4-of-4 from 50-and-over: 51, 55, 57, and 58 and was named an alternate to the Pro Bowl.
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