Red, white and ready to go
Cards prep for preseason opener vs. the Chargers Cardinals pack roster with hometown players
Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald signs autographs at the Red and White practice on Saturday at State Farm Stadium in Glendale.
It was a cross between a dress rehearsal and a glorified walkthrough, a chance for first-year coach Kliff Kingsbury and the Cardinals to simulate live game operations in advance of Thursday night’s preseason opener against the visiting Los Angeles Chargers.
It featured real referees, cheerleaders, player in
If things go bad for the Arizona Cardinals this year, feel free to boo. Just be careful how loudly you do it at State Farm Stadium. There’s a strong chance the fan you’re sitting next to has more than a passing interest in what’s happening on the field.
D.J. Foster, Zane Gonzalez, Brett Hundley, Chris
troductions, a quick speech to the fans by Kingsbury – who ended it by promising, “We can’t wait to cut it loose for you this year” – and, oh yeah, a lot of football.
“At the end of the day, we just want to see us play sound football,” linebacker Jordan Hicks said of Saturday’s annual Red and White Practice at State Farm Stadium. “This is kind of the mock before the first preseason game, so we want to be sharp, we want to be sound.
“This is important because even in walkthroughs, you have to be locked in, mentally. As long as we’re like that every single day and we’re coming out here competing, we’ll be good.”
With an appreciative crowd of several thousand on hand, the Cardinals had their moments when they looked great, average and absolutely underwhelming. As crisp as they looked in some areas on Saturday, there were too many penalties and a lot of clunky play across the board during 11-on-11 work. Kicker Zane Gonzalez looked a little shaky as well on some of his field-goal attempts.
But hey, it’s pre-preseason for everyone, after all.
In addition to having some coaches upstairs in the booth to work on substitutions and personnel groups, another area where Kingsbury was looking forward to using Saturday’s event as a test run included continuing to improve headset communications from the sideline when calling in plays to rookie quarterback Kyler Murray.
Both relied on hand signals during their college experience, but they’ve been practicing with NFL technology since the start of training camp. It hasn’t always worked smoothly, according to Murray.
“It’s been a challenge having to deliver (the play) to everyone while still trying to focus on coach Kingsbury talking in my ear,” he said. “You’re trying to focus on saying things to the line and giving signals to the receivers. That’s probably the biggest adjustment I’ve had to deal with coming from college.
“I think it’s a neat deal, but yeah, it takes some getting used to a little bit.”
As for getting used to the speed of the game at the NFL level, Murray will get a firsthand feel for that against the Chargers. “The windows are tighter. You’ve got to anticipate things a lot more,” he said. “But that makes it fun. In college, dudes would be wide open and it would be pretty easy. But this is part of the NFL.”
The way Kingsbury sees it, Murray has already had nearly two weeks of facing real NFL defenses by going up against his Cardinals teammates every day in practice.
“I think he’s seen it. We’ve gone against our ‘ones’ a bunch out there,” Kingsbury said. “I understand the game and things of that nature, but we’ve been going against an NFL defense for a couple weeks now and all spring. I think it’s more about getting out there, working operations, seeing the game clock and all those things that go into an actual game day.”
Cardinals defensive coordinator Vance Joseph has helped by throwing an array of disguised schemes at Murray and the rest of Arizona’s offense. It’s a regular occurrence at Cardinals camp, and Murray is thankful for it.
“I don’t know about any other defensive coordinators in the league, but I think we’ve gotten a ton of good looks, a ton of different looks, a variety of different looks,” Murray said. “I think he’s prepared me and the other quarterbacks pretty well.”
That being said, don’t expect Murray and many of the Cardinals’ starters to play more than a couple of series next Thursday. It will be a case-bycase scenario, Kingsbury said, adding, “If we think they need the work, they’ll get the work. If we don’t, they won’t.”
“The trend throughout the league seems to be less of the name players, so to speak, playing, so I can see it continuing to go that way,” he said.
As for Murray, it depends. The goal is to get him out of the game having felt good about what he did, whether it takes a small handful of plays or several of them. As a rookie, Murray needs some live-game reps, even though he’s completely entrenched and knows the offense. For others such as veterans Larry Fitzgerald, Patrick Peterson, Terrell Suggs and Chandler Jones, they’ll probably get very few preseason snaps.
What will be interesting is how Kingsbury decides to use running back David Johnson. Entering his fifth NFL season, is there any importance to playing him at all right now?
“It’s a great question,” Kingsbury said. “I think we’re working through that. I know David is feeling really healthy and is excited to go. We want to make sure by game one that he’s at his peak, so whatever it takes to do that as a staff and with him, we’ll figure that out and go from there.”
Kingsbury said if any particular starters are going to get semi-extended looks in the preseason, it probably will be members of the offensive line, who he said have been “a bright spot in camp.” That way, he said, backup quarterback Brett Hundley can be at his best and have an opportunity to make more plays when he’s in games.