Arizona Cardinals sign Denmark’s Hjalte Froholdt to a two-year contract extension
Danish offensive lineman Hjalte Froholdt has agreed to terms on a two-year contract extension with the Arizona Cardinals in the National Football League.
The 28 year old originally signed with the Cardinals in 2023 and started all 17 games in his first season with Arizona. He turned in a very underrated showing, allowing just three sacks and four QB hits operating with multiple starting signal callers.
According to Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon, Froholdt developed rapidly:
“He just needed to play. He was all in. Maximizes himself, team guy, very intelligent, very strong and had the skillset to play a couple different positions. We just decided to put him at center and he took it and ran with it.”
Froholdt spent the previous two seasons with the Cleveland Browns. In 2022, Froholdt played in all 17 games for the Browns, starting six, four at center and two at right guard. Interestingly, Cardinals offensive coordinator Drew Petzing was quarterbacks coach for the Browns during the 2022 season.
Hjalte Froholdt is one of five Danish born NFL players to play in the NFL, and just the second in the past four decades. (Getty Images)
Froholdt had been picked up by Cleveland from the Houston Texans practice squad in October 2021.
A fourth-round pick of the New England Patriots in the 2019 NFL Draft, Froholdt remained with the Patriots until November 202o when he was picked up on waivers by Houston.
Froholdt’s selection in the 2019 Draft marked only the second time in history that a Dane has been drafted in the NFL. The first was Pro Football Hall of Fame kicker Morten Andersen in the 1982 NFL Draft. He too was picked in the fourth round.
The 6’5″, 310 pound native of Svendborg, Denmark who played football in his native country for the Søllerød Gold Diggers, first went to the United States as an exchange student in 2013. He landed in Ohio where he started playing football to make friends but excelled and moved to the IMG Academy in Florida towards the end of his high school career. He earned a 4-star recruiting grade there and after offers from a number of major schools ended up in Arkansas where he played guard and center.
