The Arizona Cardinals are in their offseason and looking ahead to 2025.
But while we are in the offseason, it is time to look back at the 2024 season and give some recognitions for player performances.
On the podcast, we discussed player awards and superlatives. Now we will put our picks 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 of 2024
Jess Root: OT Kelvin Beachum
Beachum ended up playing so much larger a role than ever expected. He was supposed to be the depth tackle. He ended up starting 12 games, nine at right tackle when Jonah Williams got hurt and then three at left tackle after Paris Johnson went down.
He struggled in Week 1 when Williams got hurt, but after that, he was solid. He played 742 total snaps on offense and was flagged only once all season for holding. While not expected to be an every-game starter, he was the guy that the coaches could rely on and not panic when their tackles went down.
Howard Balzer: K Chad Ryland
Full disclosure, I seriously considered center Hjalte Froholdt for this honor, noting that he played 1,078 snaps (98 percent). However, the unexpected consistency of Ryland after he took over for the injured Matt Prater was a large part of the Cardinals improvement to eight wins in 2024.
It began in Week 5, when Ryland hit the first of three late game-winning field goals in four weeks against the San Francisco 49ers. That occurred after an earlier 42-yard attempt was blocked and optimism wasn’t high for the 2023 rookie who flamed out with the New England Patriots.
His next two were in consecutive 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 one attempt in each game, he still made eight in those games and then closed the season by hitting nine straight with makes from 48, 49 twice, 51 and 58.
For the season he was 28-for-32 (87.5 percent) and 4-for-4 from 50-plus: 51, 55, 57 and 58 and was named an alternate for the Pro Bowl.
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