WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Jake Benzinger has never seen Arizona.

 

If all goes according to plans, Arizonans will be seeing a lot of Jake Benzinger in the years ahead.

 

“I’ve never been to Arizona before, not even to see the Grand Canyon or anything,” Benzinger said Sunday afternoon in a telephone interview from his parents’ home. “I’ve got a couple of things to check off the bucket list when I get out there.

 

“I’m going to have to get acclimated to the temperature. It’s very different than it is in Williamstown.”

 

It’s even different than Winston-Salem, N.C., where the 2015 Mount Greylock Regional School graduate spent the last five years as a student and then starting offensive tackle for the Wake Forest University Demon Deacons.

 

On Saturday evening, as the 2020 National Football League Draft wound down, Benzinger agreed to a free agent contract with the Arizona Cardinals.

 

It was the culmination of a relationship that began relatively late in the run-up to the NFL’s selection process.

 

“They contacted me probably two weeks before the draft,” Benzinger said. “Their O-line coach contacted me and said they liked my tape, and they got all my contact information.

 

“It seemed like they were going to be a good option. Then I didn’t hear from them for a while, but around Round 7 [of the draft], when they ran out of picks, they called me and said, ‘If you slip out of the draft, we’ll be here for you.’ “

 

And shortly after the 255th and final draft selection was off the board, Benzinger was on the phone.

 

Arizona, which made six draft picks (including third-round offensive tackle Josh Jones of Houston), signed 20 undrafted free agents by late Saturday night, according to the website Arizonasports.com.

 

NBCSports.com reported Saturday night that 14 undrafted free agents had signed with the New England Patriots, who made 10 picks in the draft.

 

There is a fair amount of data to support the notion that “undrafted” is not an “unwanted” position for an aspiring NFL player.

 

Besides the true outliers -- players who went undrafted and went on to NFL stardom -- like Tony Romo and Antonio Gates, there are literally hundreds of players on NFL rosters each fall who never saw their name on a team’s draft board.

 

At the start of the 2016 season, ESPN analyst Adam Schefter tweeted, “There are more undrafted free agents on NFL rosters today (481) than 1st- and 2nd-round picks combined (480), per Elias.”

 

Last fall, Jason Fitzgerald, author of the book “Crunching the Numbers: An Inside Look at the Salary Cap and Negotiating Players’ Contracts,” reported that 31 percent of the league’s players were undrafted free agents -- roughly equal to the number of players taken in the second, third and fourth rounds combined.

 

Even with that knowledge and his prior conversations with the Cardinals, Benzinger was locked in during the draft.

 

“I was definitely on the edge of my seat,” the 2020 East-West Shrine Game participant said. “If you go in the sixth or seventh round in the draft, the team is making a bigger investment in you.

 

“But I guess the one advantage of going undrafted is you have some agency in terms of where you go, and you can pick a roster where you have a better chance of making the team or a coach that you feel comfortable with.”

 

The Cardinals Saturday told Benzinger that while there will not be the standard minicamp for rookies in early May, there will be a virtual version with a lot of “digesting the playbook and getting on the same page.” He is unsure what the summer schedule holds but hopes to get out to the Grand Canyon State before training camp opens in late July.

 

While much of Saturday may have been spent in front of the television watching the NFL’s first virtual draft, this is hardly an “off season” for Benzinger, a three-year starter and all-ACC selection at Wake Forest for head coach Dave Clawson, a 1989 Williams College graduate.

 

“I’ve been doing some basement gym workouts, doing some running, hiking, those types of things outside and still keeping football movements,” he said. “I’m working with agility ladders and whatnot.

 

“It’s definitely hard this year. I’m just trying to make do with whatever workouts I can do. Obviously, I’m going old school. Push-ups and sit-ups are a big part of the regimen for me.”

 

In normal times, the redshirt senior would have spent the last couple of months participating in pro days, working out in Wake Forest’s football complex and being around the game he loved. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, he was staying at home, “making do” and waiting to see if his dreams of signing an NFL contract would pay off.

 

“Obviously, the situation with the virus makes things a little different,” Benzinger said.

 

“I’m totally psyched that I found a place. … It would have been great to have a pro day. It would have been good to be around my teammates and put our best out there and get that opportunity. But that’s all in the past now, finally.”