Every year, Arizona looks more and more like Ohio State for Paris Johnson Jr.
When the Cardinals drafted him No. 6 overall in the 2023 NFL draft, there was only one other Ohio State alum on their roster, center Pat Elflein. In 2024, they drafted Marvin Harrison Jr. No. 4 overall. They took two more Buckeyes in the 2025 draft, Cody Simon in the fourth round and Denzel Burke in the fifth.
With the signings of Baron Browning and undrafted free agent Josh Fryar, Arizona now has six former Ohio State players on its roster, including Johnson.
In February, the Cardinals gave Johnson his most vivid Ohio State flashback yet by hiring Justin Frye, Johnson’s offensive line coach for his final year in Columbus, to oversee their front five. And Johnson believes Frye can manufacture the best play of his NFL career so far.
“It's awesome,” Johnson told Cardinals media in April. “I feel like it's not as much of a transition as much as it's kind of already in my mind. So it feels fun to be able to go right back into what I feel like got me into the NFL, you know? The communication, the techniques, the stuff, I feel like we communicate on the same page a lot. So I feel like I'm just starting to revert back to the training that developed me to get to this point.”
Frye and Johnson have known each other since the latter roamed the halls of Princeton High School in Cincinnati as a five-star offensive tackle prospect. Frye, then the offensive line coach at UCLA, built a rapport with Johnson before he ultimately signed with Ohio State in the 2020 recruiting class.
“I've known him since high school,” Johnson said. “He recruited me at UCLA. So I'll call, just ask about the kids and his family.”
After starting at right guard for Ohio State in 2021, Johnson moved to left tackle in 2022. That offseason, Ryan Day replaced former Buckeye offensive line coach Greg Studrawa with Frye.
Under Frye’s tutelage, Johnson put together one of the best seasons ever by a Buckeye left tackle in 2022. He was a consensus All-American and semifinalist for both the Outland Trophy and Lombardi Award, and his one season of elite play at the position was enough for Eleven Warriors readers to vote him one of the four greatest tackles in team history.
Frye recounted his previous year coaching Johnson at his introductory Arizona press conference in February.
“When I took him, he went from guard to tackle. It was the whole song, ‘A Whole New World,’” Frye crooned in the melody of the song from Aladdin, drawing a laugh from the media. “(I’ve been) watching all these kid movies and stuff. That was a new movie for him. And he adapted well, obviously, ended up here.”
Johnson, for the first time since his prep career, won’t have to embrace a whole new world this season. After going from tackle to guard to left tackle in his three seasons at Ohio State, he went from right tackle as a Cardinals rookie to left tackle in his second year. The 2025 season is the first time since 2019 that Johnson isn’t going through a position change.
“Honestly, to be in the same position two years in a row, I've not done that since high school,” Johnson said. “So I'm excited for that. I think I'm trying to show the world that it's time for me to make the jump, to be the best version of myself. And I believe the best version of myself is one of the best tackles in the game, but now it's time to show it.”
Johnson’s first two campaigns in the NFL were good, but it’s clear he believes he can hit another level in year three. He allowed four sacks and 23 total quarterback pressures in 15 games in 2024, per Pro Football Focus, which gave him a pass-blocking grade of 78.1 and a run-blocking grade of 73.8 for the season.
“I believe the best version of myself is one of the best tackles in the game, but now it's time to show it.”– Paris Johnson Jr.
While he worked with former Ohio State center and Rimington Trophy winner LeCharles Bentley and others on his game this offseason, tackling the basics like his stance, balance and hands, Johnson is eager to reunite with Frye. If it were legal by NFL rules, he’d have been working with him all offseason.
“I wish we were allowed to meet on a field,” Johnson said in April before the team’s minicamp and OTAs. “‘Hey, let's get started.’ Cause I love the drill work. ‘Hey, let's get started.’ Obviously, that'd be a huge fine. I don't think I'd have to pay. I think the Cardinals have to pay it. But then they’d look at me a certain kind of way (laughs). So obviously, we're not doing that, but I had him over at the house to eat, me and my girl made some food for him at the house. I don't think that's a violation. Hopefully we don't get fined for that (laughs).”
What stands out to Frye, however, is how great Johnson has gotten at dissecting his game by himself.
“He's become really self-sufficient,” Frye said. “We talked about those things. You can tell talking with him throughout the weeks of the year and ‘Coach, did you watch this?’ ‘Hey, check this out, look at this technique I was using,’ or some of those things. (He had) more of a feed me, feed me, feed me mindset as a young player. Now he's feeding himself. And so I'm excited just to see the jump for him.”
Frye proved himself as a developer of offensive line talent with Johnson and company in 2022, then again with a national championship front five defined by the adversity it overcame in 2024. The two communicate better than a 6G wireless network. Perhaps, as they did at the college level, the collaboration will result in Johnson becoming one of the best offensive tackles in the country.
“I've added the tools and stuff and the experience, the physical experience of playing my first two years already in the league before he got here,” Johnson said. “But now being able to pare that down, (Frye) being able to see the tape and be like, that's the best way to communicate to him. These are the best kind of drills and techniques to communicate to him to put him back in that consistent role (I played) the last time that we were teamed up together.”
