The Arizona Cardinals have been hit with a significant injury, as pass-rushing linebacker BJ Ojulari is out for the season with a torn ACL. Ojulari went down during Friday’s practice, and his injury was initially ruled as a knee injury.
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After further testing, it was revealed Ojulari tore his ACL, and will be out for the entire 2024 season. Right tackle Jonah Williams was on the play and blocking Ojulari when he went down.
Williams commented on the situation via the Cardinals’ official site.
“It’s football,” said right tackle Jonah Williams, who happened to be blocking Ojulari on the play he went down. “I hope he’s all right. He’s a great player and I enjoy playing with him.”
Ojulari will be all right, but he will now be lost for the season. Ojulari had a nice 2023 rookie season, as he appeared in all 17 games and secured 40 tackles and four sacks. The hope was that Ojulari was going to emerge as a bigger part of the Cardinals’ defense in 2024, but that will not be the case.
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Ojulari played college ball at LSU, where he played in all 10 games during his freshman season. He secured 16 tackles, four sacks, five tackles for loss, a forced fumble, and a fumble recovery, landing him on the SEC All-Freshman team.
Ojulari ramped up his production in 2021 even more, as he brought in 33 tackles, seven sacks, and one pass defended.
The 2022 season was much of the same for Ojulari, as he amassed 35 tackles, 5.5 sacks, one forced fumble, and one fumble recovery. He left college with a total of 16.5 sacks.
Ojulari was given a four-star rating from ESPN, 247 Sports, and Rivals during his NFL Combine performance. The Cardinals saw all they needed to see from the linebacker and selected him No. 41 overall in the 2023 NFL Draft.
From his rookie season alone, Ojulari looked like the real deal. Unfortunately, he will not be able to continue his NFL journey until 2025.
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The Cardinals have plenty of talent at the pass rush position with Zaven Collins, Dante Stills, Mack Wilson Sr., Kyzir White, and Dennis Gardeck, but losing Ojulari is still going to be tough to deal with.
Had Ojulari been able to line up against any one of these pass-rush specialists, the Cardinals’ defense would have been even tougher. For now, Ojulari will begin his recovery from a torn ACL, which generally takes around a year or more to come back from.