Rucker: Cardinals won’t stop fighting
If the Cardinals are going to turn their season around, they’re going to have to stick together and be united. There could be some concerns about whether that can happen, however, based on rumors and innuendos being floated about on Arizona sports talk radio and social media.
A day after Arizona’s devastating 34-7 loss at Philadelphia, there were whispers that some Cardinals players might be questioning not only the direction the team is headed, but the play calling and overall game plans.
Nonsense, said veteran defensive tackle Frostee Rucker.
“We’ve just got to regroup. There’s a bunch of fighters in this room and this isn’t going to change what we’re trying to accomplish,” he said Monday.
Rucker said he and his teammates are all on the same page and won’t be deterred by the Cardinals’ 2-3 start.
“We have too much of the season left,” he said. “What we all signed up to do was sign up to battle for 16 or 17 weeks and everything after that is a plus. So we’re going to keep grinding. Confidence doesn’t waver here. We just need to execute better.”
Rucker pointed out the slew of injuries that have taken out several starters, but he refuses to use that as an excuse.
“Guys will step up,” he said. “We’ve got enough guys in here to get us where we need to go.”
Injury update
A handful of players got hurt during Sunday’s game, but the most serious injury was long snapper Aaron Brewer suffering a fractured wrist. He will undergo surgery on Tuesday, at which point he will be placed on season-ending injured reserve.
The Cardinals brought five different free-agent long snappers in for tryouts on Monday.
As for the health of right tackle Jared Veldheer (knee) and defensive linemen Corey Peters (knee) and Olsen Pierre (ankle), it appears only Pierre will likely miss any time. Initially, the Cardinals feared Pierre suffered a fracture, but further examinations proved it was just a bad sprain.
As for the availability of Veldheer and Peters and their chances of playing Sunday when the Cardinals host the Buccaneers, Arians wouldn’t rule it out.
“They feel like they can do something this week,” he said. “Neither one are as sore as we thought they’d be.”
Arians said he was equally as optimistic about the returns of left tackle D.J. Humphries (knee) and left guard Alex Boone (pectoral strain).
“Hopefully. We’ll see,” he said, “but it looks that they’re going to have a chance.”
‘Coach yourself’
During his opening statements on Monday, Arians said one of his biggest gripes is how the team prepares itself from Friday to game day. He basically insinuated that there hasn’t been enough dedication and commitment following the team’s final walkthrough practices of the week, especially when traveling to the East Coast for early games.
“That extra free time on the road has to be looked as preparation time, not family time and everything else,” he said. “We made errors in the game that we have not made all season. … Coach yourself on the tape. Don’t allow a coach to coach you, because he already coached you last week. Coach yourself on the tape, and figure out why you made your mistakes so they don’t happen this week.”
Arians said he doesn’t think the team has to change how it travels. It shouldn’t have to come to that, he said.
“It just has to be a personal thing, what you’re doing, because physically, we can’t travel on Saturday and wake up at four o’clock in the morning our time to play a game,” he said.
Rucker agrees.
“It’s just policing yourselves because you know what you did wrong,” he said. “The coaches are obviously going to give you their critique of the plays, but it’s about taking ownership of yourself to get it better and concentrate on the finer things of it. He’s exactly right when he says things like that because we’re mature enough to get it done and be professionals about it and take care and clean our own house.”