Cardinals

not practice Friday with a late-week hamstring injury. Foster is also day-today.

That uncertainty headed into Sunday’s game in New Orleans is part of why the team brought in veteran running backs Jay Ajayi and Spencer Ware for workouts.

“It is. Both those guys are day-to-day currently, and we’ll continue to bring guys in throughout the season to take a look and this is no different,” Kingsbury said.

Wide receiver Christian Kirk is still still being evaluated on a daily basis, too. He has not played since Week 4.

Kingsbury said that Johnson’s ankle was not a matter of re-aggravating it on the first play of the game, but rather just that he had not progressed to where they were comfortable using him if they didn’t absolutely need him. The soaked field did not do Johnson or his ankle any favors.

“It probably didn’t help with the cold and the rain and the slick turf, but it was more just when we saw him out there in live action, it wasn’t clicking like he can go, and so we kind of backed him off,” Kingsbury said.

What did help is that Edmonds did quite all right for himself. The backup running back had a career day, though he slowed slightly in the second half. Ninety-one of his eventual 126 rushing yards came before halftime. After that, and as the downpour worsened, the Giants caught on to what the Cardinals were trying to do.

“No question. They understood that it was hard to throw it, so they were playing accordingly,” Kingsbury said Monday. “Luckily, we were ahead at that point, and you could see the struggle that it was for the Giants to try and throw it every snap when they were down.”

Kingsbury has embraced in-game adjustments, and he understands that if Johnson’s injury keeps lingering, he’ll have to make some more big-picture changes.

“We’ll have to adjust some things knowing the running back depth, maybe not as much two back,” he said. “You want to make sure whoever that back is, is healthy, so we’ll have to be smart with our personnel groups and how we’re rotating guys.”

The players on the field will be expecting those tweaks as well. Edmonds’ efficiency against the Giants came in part from the offensive line. Left guard Justin Pugh has liked the improvements in his unit, and he knows that strong chemistry with running backs, whoever it is, can boost that.

“You have to know which running back you have in the game. They both like to read things and set things up a certain way,” Pugh said. “And we’re learning more about each of these guys, and Kyler being able to run the ball as well . ... It all definitely is a factor that plays into how we block the plays.”