Fan favorite Patrick Peterson helicopters in, but most Cardinals players arrive at training camp Thursday the conventional way — and with high expectations.
Cardinals take stage surrounded by anticipation of great season ahead
Football season begins with an impact statement. Patrick Peterson reported to Cardinals training camp in a manner befitting his mentor, Deion Sanders. He took a helicopter to work. The gesture was outlandish, narcissistic, the stylings of a showboat and the envy of every Coyotes fan who has struggled traversing the Valley in time for opening faceoff. This much is also certain about Peterson’s mode of transportation:
The Cardinals are going to need a bigger aircraft to reach their desired altitude.
The 2016 NFL season hasn’t just opened in Arizona. It’s opened to the greatest anticipation since … Charles Barkley and the 1992-93 Suns lost the NBA Finals, and 300,000 people showed up for a loser’s rally? Since Steve Nash’s crew always seemed one good break away from the trophy? Since the Diamondbacks unveiled a World Series banner on Opening Day?
Barring catastrophic injuries, the Cardinals are almost a lock to make the playoffs. A Super Bowl trophy is almost in their grasp. They need their quarterback, Carson Palmer, to play his best when it matters most. They need D.J. Humphries to be the animal he says he has become, shoring up the offensive line. They need their revamped defense to bring more pressure and fear.
They are also a team that has won 34 games in three seasons; a team with unprecedented depth; with every important skill position player returning from last season; where Chris Johnson and Jermaine Gresham came back for the winning vibe, and not the money; where David Johnson is coming off one of the most impressive rookie seasons in recent memory.
The Cardinals have a host of highrent problems, and one of the few franchises competing for the ultimate prize in each conference, namely home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.
They are coming off a season that spawned one of the greatest playoff games in history, billboards in Manhattan and an eight-part streaming series on Amazon. They've had a tremendous offseason. And now Peterson just dropped into training camp via helicopter. Not a minute too soon. The Diamondbacks have done the
opposite over the summer. They are currently writing a handbook on how to squander momentum, how to alienate fans by under-delivering on lofty promises. Their season began with the celebration of a new $206 million pitcher, and the team has actually regressed on the field and in the standings, to the sticky, dark web of last place.
Even Tony La Russa is sounding dejected, if not defeated.
La Russa recently wondered “if I’m the guy” to build a baseball organization in 2016, and while the candor was brilliant, the lack of conviction was disconcerting. Maybe he's just deflecting attention from Chip Hale, who endured an embarrassing stint on the hot seat, when the Diamondbacks were reportedly considering a change in managers heading into a weekend series in Cincinnati. Hale survived but also knows that someone went gunning for his job, to the point most observers expect him to be replaced by Phil Nevin after the season.
La Russa might be shielding Dave Stewart, the GM of choice who hadn’t worked a front-office job in over a decade. The results have been shoddy, and the Diamondbacks have been widely ridiculed for two of their recent trades and for generally emptying the farm for little short-term gain. Meanwhile, La Russa’s integrity has been attacked by an anonymous National League general manager.
Nevertheless, La Russa provided great clarity to the Diamondbacks' dilemma during a recent radio interview, when he thanked Managing General Partner Ken Kendrick and President and CEO Derrick Hall for affording him with a “unique opportunity.”
“Nobody’s ever done this, put a guy with just a baseball background in the middle of the front office,” La Russa said.
The importance of that statement can’t be overstated. La Russa was a great manager who is trying hard to be a great chief baseball officer. But it’s harder than it looks, and it's not his specialty. And if time proves La Russa to be out of touch with the modern art of winning baseball, the blame lands on Hall for bringing in a great name to be his chief baseball officer, and not necessarily a great candidate.
The Cardinals don’t have these problems. They have begun training camp in style, with one of their best players dropping in from the sky. Grand openings deserve grand gestures, and great teams always add to their own mythology. Michael Irvin’s Cowboys took limousines to practice before a Super Bowl. The 1985 Bears recorded “The Super Bowl Shuffle” long before making the playoffs. Peterson has done something smaller yet similar, and now the Cardinals must back up their own bravado.
Either way, they are proof that an organization can elevate when it empowers the right people, starting with the right general manager. Unlike the Diamondbacks, the Cardinals have little trouble winning at home, creating a huge surge in the value of tickets. And now the stage is once again theirs, even though they never really left.
Reach Bickley at dan.bickley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8253. Follow him at twitter.com/danbickley. Listen to “Bickley and Marotta,” weekdays from 12-2 p.m. on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM.