Word of the day would probably be excitement. There’s an identity. We knew who we were, what we wanted to do. Now, you come in and you watch and try to critique and you clean up some things that weren’t good. You scratch what itches and then you enhance and supplement what was really good.
“Having an identity of who you are and what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it breeds confidence and confidence breeds success. And you can see that on the tape with kind of the shell game as who was up, who was down, who was injured, who was playing. There was still that identity of what we were going to be and how we were going to do it and they executed at a high level.”
That being said, Arizona’s offensive line could look noticeably different than its 2024 tape.
Three starters are headed toward free agency in right tackle Kelvin Beachum and guards Evan Brown and Will Hernandez. Jonah Williams is coming off an injury-filled year.
There are, however, two names that are sticking around for this year and beyond that Frye knows all too well from his time in the college ranks.
During his time coaching the offensive lines at UCLA (2018-2021) and Ohio State (2022-24), Frye crossed paths with both Paris Johnson Jr. and Jon Gaines II.
In addition to having a couple of familiar faces in the training facility — throw Marvin Harrison Jr. into that mix, too — Frye also plans to utilize the players to better serve the line as a coach.
“I think it’s going to pay dividends in the backend that we don’t know of yet, but good sounding boards especially,” Frye said of the luxury of having the already established relationships. “I had the opportunity to do that as a college coach reaching out to a bunch of guys that I put in professional football.
“Now being in the room with those guys, there’ll be something that’ll pop up or something where it’s a great sounding board to go right to your guy that’s playing and say, ‘Hey, thinking about doing this, we’ve done this in the past. I’ve changed it a little bit. How’s that going to fit here?’ And they maybe go, ‘Coach, that would be great. We need that back’ or ‘Coach, that’s not so good and here’s why. Having a good relationship to communicate that way with them will be beneficial.”
Justin Frye’s appeal to the Cardinals
Landing an NFL job and reuniting with a few familiar faces is appealing in their own rights.
Seeing how Gannon operates and the culture he’s built only solidified Frye’s move was the right one.
“In the football business just whether it’s whatever level you got there’s communication and you get a sense and a feel for people. I think we latched on and I latched onto what he’s about as a man, as a figure head of the organization and ultimately running the football program.
“To be able to hop on and get going and keep going with them, there was a real comfort there with that. … Then knowing that fit was a square peg in a square hole and not vice versa. The excitement of that really played into it.”
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