Paris Johnson Jr. could end the Cardinals' 3-decade search for an elite left tackle

Paris Johnson Jr. was signing autographs on the first day of Arizona Cardinals’ 2023 training camp when a svelte, 6-feet-5, 60-something man approached the rookie. Instead of asking for Johnson’s autograph, the man handed him a playing card that was three decades old.

“I said, ‘You know, I played that position,” Luis Sharpe said. “I’m transferring the mantle over to you, young man.'”

It was a symbolic gesture, but there was more than a little truth to it. You can make a strong argument that Sharpe is the last player in franchise history to play this position at a consistently elite level. Since then, left tackle has been almost as big of an organizational black hole as the tight end position.

The Cardinals tried to remedy the problem. They chose Leonard Davis with the second overall pick in 2001. He eventually earned three Pro Bowl nods — as a guard with the Dallas Cowboys.

The Cardinals infamously selected Levi Brown with the No. 5 overall pick in the 2007 draft — two spots ahead of running back Adrian Petersen. Brown was better than some analysts believed, but he never approached Pro Bowl level.

Jared Veldheer and Mike Gandy had short runs and Johnson’s predecessor and mentor, DJ Humphries, may be his next closest rival, but the Cardinals have been searching for Sharpe’s replacement since he retired in 1994.

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GM Monti Ossenfort and the scouting staff believe they found that guy in Johnson.

“He’s extremely competitive and I think that’s gonna be important for any player to ascend to the level we’re talking about,” Cardinals offensive line coach Klayton Adams said. “He’s got the physical traits of a guy that was picked where he was, which is why you generally get picked when he got picked, but I think he’s got a competitor’s mindset and a growth mindset, which is to say that he’s not generally satisfied with what he’s doing. He’s always trying to find ways to get better.”

Johnson isn’t shy about those aspirations.

“I know the big names that have come before me here like Dan Dierdorf and [Sharpe], but again, the years are far apart from the greats to now,” Johnson said. “The way that Hump has been the left tackle of this franchise for the past [seven] years, I would love to be able to work to put myself in a position to be the franchise guy; the guy that can go up on the wall. I want to be a part of that tradition.

“Something I talk about with the guys all the time is I want us to have a tradition with the O-line that’s the same way we talk about the Eagles or the Cowboys. I want to build that tradition here where we’ve got a standard in the room and an expectation so when you when you get drafted here or traded here, you become a part of it and it means something to you — that this is a room full of dogs — but everything I’m talking about can only happen when we start to jump off the tape this season.”

Sharpe said he brought that same mindset to a career in which he earned three Pro Bowl nods.

“It absolutely matters and it is encouraging that he has that mindset,” Sharpe said. “I’ve learned in the 64 years I’ve been alive that it’s as important on the football field as it is in life.

“We weren’t on national TV very much and nobody really paid attention to the lowly St. Louis/Arizona Cardinals when I played because we didn’t win a lot of games. So it was important for me to play well against top talent, particularly when we were playing in New York or some of the major cities. From a selfish perspective, that was an opportunity for me to secure Pro Bowl votes and demonstrate my wares as a top-level left tackle in the league. I embraced that pressure. I wanted it.”

After retiring, Sharpe experienced deep personal struggles before finding redemption through service, but he was part of a group that transformed the left tackle position into one of the highest-paid positions in the league. He credits the great edge rushers with increasing the importance of his position in the eyes of teams.

“I think Lawrence Taylor made that position the commodity that it is today because in our day, if you didn’t have someone to block Lawrence Taylor and some of the other great pass rushers like Richard Dent or Chris Doleman, you couldn’t effectively run an offense,” Sharpe said. “One of the things we had was a great aerial attack with Neil Lomax and Roy Green and Timm Rosenbaugh and Robert Awalt and Ernie “Indiana” Jones. That was essential to our success so you had to have someone at that position to keep these screaming, pass-rushing defensive ends and linebackers off of your quarterback.”

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The Cardinals’ selection of Johnson was anything but assured when the 2023 NFL Draft began. Arizona originally sat in the No. 3 slot, but traded the pick to the Texans for the No. 12 overall pick, the No. 33 overall pick, Houston’s 2024 first-round pick, and a 2024 third-rounder.

After Houston took defensive end Will Anderson Jr. at No. 3, Arizona jumped back up to No. 6 in a trade with the Detroit Lions that also saw them acquire the 81st overall pick in exchange for No. 12, No. 34, and No. 168.

Johnson, Adams, Ossenfort and everyone else in the organization understands the critical nature of the left tackle position. Johnson is there to protect Kyler Murray‘s blind side, both to allow the passing game to function and to keep Murray upright and healthy.

But nobody in that group talks specifically about pressure unless it is mentioned externally.

“We definitely don’t think in those terms,” Adams said. “It is a premium position, but I think if you are going to achieve at the level you want to achieve as a team or as an individual player, it comes by focusing on the micro level; the details that are going to help you get there rather than looking at the entire mountain and saying, ‘How am I getting to the top?’

“That’s where we live is in that mode of, ‘What’s happening today out on the grass? How do we make this walk-through perfect?’ Rather than saying, ‘I want to be an elite player,’ let’s have an elite practice. That doesn’t even mean winning every single rep. It just means doing every single thing at a really high level consistently. That’s how we have a chance at a happy Sunday.”

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Johnson is a student of the game. In addition to familiarizing himself with the organization’s history, he likes to study the NFL elite.

“I love to watch top tackles and I like to take note of their work,” he said. “What’s the common thing with everybody’s feet? How does everybody get to their stance? What’s the traditional angle that they set on? How do they use their hands?

“I like to study that way so that when I watch myself on tape, I’ve seen enough of other guys to the point where the knowledge transfers to practice and it just feels right, which is huge.”

Despite his aspirations, Johnson knows he can’t rush the process to put his name in the elite left tackle conversation. He’s switching from right tackle back to his natural position this season. It’s a switch that Adams said really isn’t a major adjustment, but it’s another hurdle in a hurdle-riddled path standing between Johnson and his ultimate individual goal.

“It just takes reps, reps, reps and the right mindset,” Johnson said. “It’s just trying to take it day by day. Day-by-day consistency is day-by-day development to continue to master your craft. That’s what it’s gonna take to put myself in that elite conversation in terms of the top left tackles in the country, and I definitely want to be that guy.”

Top photo of Paris Johnson Jr. via Getty Images

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