Arizona Cardinals cornerback Will Johnson is entering the 2025 NFL season with a chip on his shoulder. Despite entering the draft as a projected top-10 pick, injury concerns caused Johnson to fall to the end of the second round. As difficult as the process was on him, Johnson admitted that watching the Los Angeles Chargers and his former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh pass on him was the toughest.
After many scouts touted Johnson as the best cornerback of the class, the 22-year-old was appalled when teams passed on him in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft. Johnson was particularly hurt when his former coach, Harbaugh, also passed him over, he admitted in an article with The Players' Tribune.
“I still had hope when the Chargers got on the board,” Johnson wrote. “Even though the night wasn't going to plan, I had a feeling this could be the moment. Coach Harbaugh saw what I went through at Michigan. He knows how I've handled it, especially where my knee is concerned, and how it hasn't affected me at all. The Los Angeles Chargers select — not me. Not the kid from Michigan. I can't lie, I felt some type of way. Who wouldn't? I was a projected top-five pick and now my college coach won't even draft me?”
Johnson was a first-team All-American with Harbaugh at Michigan in 2023 and a second-team All-American in 2024. He spent the majority of his senior year on the sidelines, dealing with a knee injury that lingered into the offseason and caused him to sit out of Pro Day workouts. The injury evidently worried scouts enough to leave him on the board until the Cardinals ended his slide at No. 47.
Cardinals CB Will Johnson expects to put teams on notice in 2025
Despite his draft positioning, Johnson is determined to hit the ground running in 2025. The rookie showed out all offseason, enough for the Cardinals to list him as a starter on their unofficial depth chart.
Johnson ended up being the fourth cornerback taken in the 2025 NFL Draft. Travis Hunter was unsurprisingly the first player taken at No. 2, followed by Jahdae Barron to the Denver Broncos at No. 20 and Maxwell Hairston to the Buffalo Bills at No. 30. Johnson admitted that it was difficult for him to watch teams select players who he “knows he's better than” before him.
Johnson was a projected top-10 pick in many mock drafts, but his slide fell under the radar. Fans were more enthralled by Shedeur Sanders' fall out of the first round after being considered a potential No. 1 pick at the beginning of the offseason.
