Will Johnson Is Done for the Year, and the Cardinals Have Nobody Behind Him

The neck injury that had Will Johnson listed as out has now cost him the rest of the season. I wrote a few days ago that the secondary was already thin before this happened — the Cardinals entered the year with no meaningful depth behind Andrew Wingard at the DB position, and Jaden Davis had been on injured reserve since late July. Johnson's situation has now moved from worrying to settled in the worst way.

Garrett Williams is listed as questionable, and Max Melton is in the same boat. Neither has established themselves as a reliable presence. The depth chart behind Wingard has no one who has played meaningful snaps this season, and that was true even before Johnson went down. The Cardinals are now trying to cover ground in the secondary with bodies that haven't proven they can hold up at this level.

None of this is new, exactly — the secondary was flagged as a problem area before Week 1. But there's a difference between a thin group that might get by and a thin group that just lost one of its more promising pieces for the year. That gap matters more as the schedule continues.