The Arizona Cardinals star running back David Johnson has suffered a brutal knee injury in the final game of the season against the Los Angeles Rams.
In a meaningless game between NFC West rivals in the Arizona Cardinals and the Los Angeles Rams, Cardinals Pro Bowl running back David Johnson seems to have suffered a brutal knee injury to end his stellar sophomore campaign.
Johnson was clearly the best player on the hapless 2016 Cardinals. He was arguably the best running back in the NFC this season. Johnson had to be carted off the field at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Week 17’s road game against the division rival Rams.
Cardinals RB David Johnson carted to the locker room in Los Angeles.
— Andrew Siciliano (@AndrewSiciliano) January 1, 2017
Not only is this bad news for the Cardinals to end the season, but it really hurts their upside heading into 2017. The Cardinals stumbled a bit in the passing game in 2016. Quarterback Carson Palmer regressed a tad from his near-MVP 2015 campaign. Arizona leaned heavily on its second-year running back out of Northern Iowa to get into the end zone.
Hopefully Johnson has a speedy recovery, but this knee injury will probably keep him out for most of the 2017 NFL season. For an offensive-minded head coach like Arizona’s Bruce Arians, he has to hate that he can’t pound the rock with conviction for a good part of next season sans Johnson.
2016 was not a kind year to the Cardinals football team. Arizona went all the way to the 2015 NFC Championship Game before being steamrolled by the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte. Since that brutal playoff loss, the Cardinals have not been the same team.
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Losing a player the caliber of Johnson this late in a meaningless game is just piling on to the awfulness of the Cardinals’ 2016 NFL season.
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