The Cardinals didn’t sign or draft a new left tackle this offseason, but they have designs on someone other than Jared Veldheer manning the position.
The team has shifted Veldheer to the right side of the line and plan to have D.J. Humphries take over on the left. The 2015 first-round pick said there’s been no awkwardness with Veldheer about the change as the veteran told him they’re “going to be good” in their new alignment.
That doesn’t mean the shift is a seamless one. There are habits to break with a move to a new position, something Veldheer called “kind of scary at first.”
“I wouldn’t categorize it as easy or hard,” Veldheer said, via the team’s website. “I think it’s just getting to the point where you can get that muscle memory. Your body, after doing it for years and years on one side, wants to take that position when you’re telling it to go block somebody. So it’s just that process of getting those reps down. We’re going a little faster in this phase, and it will probably be different again [in OTAs]. Then it will be different again in training camp, and it will be different again in the preseason, you know what I mean? There’s that curve of getting there. I understand it’s a process. There’s nothing to say it can’t be done. You’ve just got to do it and put in the time.”
If the process proves to be too much for the Cardinals, they can always go back to the old alignment but it looks like there will be old faces in new places come September.