August 20, 2025 • 58 mins
The Cardinals were obliterated 27-7 by the Broncos in their second preseason game after a joint practice. Jess and Seth react to the game and address a pair of things some fans have been upset about.
Remember, it's the preseason.
Enjoy the show!
Remember, it's the preseason.
Enjoy the show!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Z Yes.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
This is the Rise Up Sea Red podcast, all about
the Arizona Cardinals and the NFL, featuring insider and outsider perspectives.
Enjoy the best hour of Cardinals talk on the web.
Now Here are your hosts, Jess Root.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
And Seth Cox, Hellowers and the Cardinals fans and welcome
to the latest edition of the Rise Up Sacred podcast,
the bestar of Cardinals Talk on the web. I'm your
host Jess Root from cardswire dot com, the USA Today
NFL wire site that covers yours and a Cardinals episode
six eighty eight recording on a Tuesday afternoon with my
(00:46):
co host Seth Cox from Revenge of the Birds dot
com espination's Arizona Cardinals site. And it is we get
to talk about the Cardinals second preseason game. It's our
game review and it was an ugly when Seth wasn't
it there. There is almost nothing that we can take
away from that game other than it was a preseason
game and we are one game closer because there wasn't
(01:08):
a whole lot of anything to like, No, there wasn't
and you.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Know, I I you know, was honestly flipping between the
UFC card and watching the game, because you know, as
I've said before, there's not much you're going to glean
from a live viewing of preseason games when you're trying
(01:34):
to like gauge what players have or where they're at
in their process, right, and and so you're watching enough
to be able to talk about the game shortly after,
and you're like, you know, what we saw article, But
(01:54):
for the most part, it's a pretty it's a fairly
quick viewing, and and you know you've got it's it's
not like Sundays in the fall, right where you're dialed
in and there's nothing else going on. And so on
first viewing it it looked bad, and quite frankly, on
second viewing it didn't look much better. But I think
(02:17):
it was I think there was some right, I think
there were some things. There are some things that we
could gain from all of this. And and you know,
it's something that we'll talk about in this because I've
learned again obviously much much different, but I've learned in
(02:46):
in my short time just coaching in in high school
that like the reality becomes there are times, especially in
scrimmages and then you know, the preseason games, which is
what basically a glorified scrimmage that they'll coaches will put
(03:12):
players in a position to see what they can do
or as we'll discuss in a little bit what they
can't do. And sometimes that looks bad, and that's okay
because it gives it gives the coaches an idea of
where they're at with with players. So you know, that's
(03:34):
how I look at this game more than anything else.
But you know, we got a lot to a lot
to discuss and it'll be it'll be a nice quick
quick show. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Well, what I want to talk about first is the
the fact that and we knew, we figured this would happen.
We called this is that when the Cardinals played their
starters in the first preseason game, we said, don't expect
them to play the rest of the way because they
had the joint practice. They've never played, and it ended
up being the case. They didn't play their starters after
(04:10):
the joint practice. That's three years running out the Cardinals
haven't done that. And then the third preseason game, you
don't play your starters. And so they had what it
was a couple hours, they had a joint practice on Thursday.
They were in I think they said on the TV
broadcast fifty five plays, which in its majority of the
starters get. They treat the they treat the joint practices
(04:33):
like like they do game situations, and so it's pretty
much with their starters. And the TV broadcast said they
got fifty five plays, and so the decision was made
that they didn't need to get the work in the
preseason game, and so they did all backups. And honestly,
(04:53):
the question has been, well, don't they need the work.
Don't the starters need the work? Look look at what's
happened with this previous years where we're not learning anything.
And my case, Mike, well tell me, tell me your
take on the Cardinals not playing their starters, because I
was one hundred percent I never believed they were going
to play in the first place.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Yeah, and you know, again based on the fact that
they had a very physical and you know, physical and
aggressive joint practice, like you said, there was no real
need for it. I mean, we talked about it before
the game. I would be surprised if if you know,
(05:38):
these guys played, and some of them did, right. We
saw We saw Will Johnson, a.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Will Johnson and a King Davis B Gather. Those are
the only two that we would consider likely starters when
and we wondered if Will would get any work and
he barely play was it eight snaps?
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, now's and and to that point, right, like it
was one of those situations where there was a specific
reason he was playing and they saw or didn't see
what they wanted or didn't want to see, and and
you know, got him off out of there. It wasn't
It wasn't a game where it's like, hey, we need
to see all this work. It was a game where
(06:15):
it was like, hey, there's a couple of things we
want to see, like go out there, get some reps
in let's see how it looks. And again I'm I'm
okay with that, Like I think the joint practice is
a little bit better of a thing. You know, you
and I talked about that on on last Thursday, right,
like the reality becomes you can you can simulate the
(06:36):
game a little better and a little more controlled. And
I know people would be like, well, you don't want
the game to be controlled, No, but you do in
preseason right and scrimmages for evaluation.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
You'd rather that And it does take away some of
the it reduces the risk that you have in live game.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Action, right and so so and so that's one of
the things that we looked at in this situation. And
so for me, I like all of that. You know,
I'm I'm of the opinion right now that that they're
they feel comfortable with where they're at, and that makes
the fan base uncomfortable because people are going, well, why
(07:21):
would they feel good about where they're at? And it's like,
hold on, hold on, It's okay that they feel positive
about where they're at. You don't have to feel positive.
I don't have to feel positive. But they feel comfortable
with what they have and where they're at and where
they're moving towards. And so those things make them them
(07:43):
look at a situation like a second preseason game against
the Broncos, you know, two threes and on and go, okay,
not worth the risk for Kyler, for James, for you
know these guys. And and I've seen other people say like,
oh well, yeah, James Connor doesn't need to work, but
(08:03):
like what about Kyler Murray and Trey Benson. It's like, okay,
so wait, you're going to put Kyler Murray out there,
but you're not gonna put let's say paras jauntson junior
out there.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Sounds that's nonsense.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Sounds.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Do not put Kyler behind your second team line in
the preseason, No.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
And so and so for me, it's like, look, it's
an all or nothing situation. And if you're gonna say like, hey,
this guy doesn't need it, I'm comfortable with that. And
that's how that's fine, you know. And again I'm not
a huge preseason guy anyways, Like if you have a
(08:42):
joint practice, I should say I'm not a huge preseason guy,
because again, I don't know how much you can glean
from preseason. You've got you've got desperate guys trying to
make rosters. You've got other guys just trying to stay healthy. Right, Like,
there's a there's a big discrepancy in who's putting in
(09:02):
effort and who's not.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
And go ahead, And I was going to say, is
that the maybe, maybe there was the slightest chance that
that Jonathan Gannon wanted to get his starters some work
on Saturday. It didn't make any sense to put the
starters in just to put the starters in. If Sean
Payton wasn't ever going to start his starters, get his
(09:26):
starters playing, you learn and do you learn nothing if
you know your starter's going against twos and it's honestly, publicly,
it's a lose lose situation because if they look good,
we're like, well you do Worgan's backups, And then they
don't look great, then you're like, oh crap, they suck everyone,
fire everyone, right.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And that's exactly what it is. Justin like to me that,
like you said, it was literally no reason, like okay,
as soon as Sean Payton called the audible of like, hey,
we're not playing our starters and there was never an
audible right, like that was what he had was the plan.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
It's just he's the one who said it.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
But as soon as he made that call, yeah, you
and I were like, okay, there's nothing to worry about.
And I get it again, guys, I understand like there
are people that'll be like, no, no, they need the work. Okay,
that's your opinion, and that's fine. You one thousand percent
can have that opinion. I I don't think it's a
negative opinion. I don't think it's a positive opinion.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Well, and what we've learned over the course of many
years of watching football, there's not necessarily a right or
wrong way to do the preseason, because there's teams who
succeed doing almost nothing in the preseason. There's teams who
succeeded who do everything in the preseason. There are teams
who are great in the preseason who are terrible in
(10:48):
the regular season. You know, I'm old enough to remember
many many years where they go four and oho and
three in one of the preseason, then win five games
for the entire regular season. And like, the preseason is
like you can't look at like it's literally situational and
it's individual. Like you're looking like you want late in
(11:10):
the game. Ideally, you want the game to be in
a situation. You want your starters to compete well, and
you want the guys to the back of the roster
doing winning behaviors, and you want them to be able
to put them put the team in a position to
win because winning is fun. But ultimately it's individual. You're
(11:30):
looking at individual things. You're evaluating every player, you're evaluating rotations,
you're even evaluating how you coach and the type of
plays that you call in those situations. I mean, it's
all like the outcome of preseason games is literally nothing.
It's literally nothing, and which is why people laughed. Remember
(11:51):
the winning streak that the Ravens had, what twenty three
straight preseason wins, and people that were mocking John Harboff
for that because and he's you know, he's a hardball
and he wants to win. He's like, we compete, we compete,
we want to win. I'm like, it's not that deep, guys,
it's not that deep.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Right, it's not. And that's the hard part. And you know,
so much of it just comes down to the reps, right,
And and something we'll talk about shortly is like how
kind of limited or or boxed in the team is
where the team puts themselves in and and people you
(12:38):
know go, oh, man, I can't believe, you know, I
can't believe they did x Y or Z or didn't
do x Y or Z. And it's like it's the preseason.
I can like, you know, again, like I hate always
going back to high school stuff with this, but like if,
for instance, when we have a scrimmage this week at
(13:02):
Jessice School, by the way, when we have a scrimmage
this week, like they're not going to show anything, They're
gonna run their base sets, they're gonna run their base coverages.
They might blitz every once in a while, but like
it's going to be very contained because one, you can't
hit the quarterback, and at least in the preseason you
can hit a quarterback, right like in these scrimmages and stuff,
(13:25):
you can't. And so teams utilize this and go, okay,
like here are here are the you know, if you're
gonna get fifty snaps or what'd you say? The Cardinals
had fifty five snaps in the joint practice.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
That is what they said on the in the broadcast.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Okay, so fifty five snaps. You know what happens in
those they go, they go, okay, here's we're going to go.
You know, we're going to run these and like you said,
in these scenarios, right like in these situations and and
(14:06):
this is what we want to see. And and you
know what's even crazier, sometimes the defense will go, okay,
we'll give you this look so you can get the
look you want, right like, Like so in those joint practices,
for instance, there might be a scenario where you know,
pet Thing's like, hey, we're doing this, can you guys
give us this look? Right or vice versa, right, Like
(14:28):
the defense like, hey, we can you show us something
out of this Uh, we we want to we want
to try something out of this look. Or you get
to see what we need, how we need to adjust
on this look. Like that's how it's how it's done.
And so like when you're doing that, it's so much
more valuable than a preseason game when you're like, all right,
(14:52):
well we're gonna run you know, X, Y and Z.
And then a team like we joked about a couple
weeks ago, right the first year with Cliff and the Raiders,
a team gets a hair, a wild hair, and all
of a sudden, they're bringing pressures from all over and
they're doing wild stuff that most teams would never do
in a preseason game. But they were trying to make
(15:13):
a statement, you know. And like you said, like with Harbaugh,
it's like there's a lot of teams that look at
the preseason and go, hey, I need to you know,
we want to see this worked one, Like we just
want to see us working. And you know, I'm just
gonna throw something out there, cover two, right, and we're
not going to worry about anything else, and we're gonna
(15:34):
run cover two and the other team goes, hey, they're
just in cover two. Let's run this, this and this,
knowing that it beats cover too easily, and and the
fans will go, what the hell, why are we just
getting killed in this? And it's like, well, they're obviously
trying to work on something, Like I get it. It's annoying,
but it's done nine times out of ten, and I
won't say every time, but nine times out of ten
(15:56):
it's done with a purpose and and for a purpose.
So yeah, like I just you know, the overall like
did it look good? Just and I've talked about that.
Did it look good? Hell?
Speaker 2 (16:09):
No?
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Like absolutely, like, no, it did not look good. In fact,
it looked the opposite of good. Is it something to
be concerned about? Well, if the twenty seven top players
get injured for the Cardinals, absolutely, like it's it's very concerning.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
And they don't game plan against They don't have a
plan for particular looks or of things. That's the other
thing is that they're not They literally don't game plan, yeah,
or they don't make defensive game plan for their themselves.
They have their defensive game plan for themselves, but they
are not studying film of the other team on how
to counter these offensive defensive looks. It's it's it's just nonsense.
(16:52):
It's nonsense, I tell you. Coming on EXCE and the
Rise of Secret podcast, mister Cardinals talk lib something else
are upset about. And that was a revelation that that
honestly shouldn't be too surprising. That's coming an extent. Rice
ups He read. We're back on the Rise of Here
podcast Best Our Cardinals Talk. On the episode episode six
hundred and eighty eight, we're talking about the cardinals twenty
(17:12):
seven to seven preseason loss to the Denver Broncos over
the weekend at empower Field at Mile High. Jonathan Gannon
came out and said after the game that he that
neither Nick Rowlis nor Drew Petsing called plays in that game.
Rallis who typically is on the on the sideline calling plays.
(17:34):
He was up in the booth. He didn't reveal who
it was. And that was one of the first things
that kind of mentioned is that in that loss is
like the play calls were by someone else and everyone's like,
ha ha, well, don't do that again. And John Josh White,
I don't know where he got the informatio off as
he got it that it was Ryan Smith, their their
cornerbacks coach, was calling the defensive place, and Drew Torrell,
(17:55):
their receivers coach and passing in quarter at coordinator, was
calling the offensive place in that game. Interesting note is
that you know that isn't, by the way, new, That's
not a new concept for the Cardinals. After all, Bruce
Arians used to do it every preseason. Harold Goodwin would
(18:17):
call clays in the preseason, giving his staff experience they needed. Heck,
Cliff Kingsbury had had Kyler Murray do it one game,
and so it's not uncommon. And it isn't as simple
as saying, oh, the offense and the defense were bad,
don't ever let them call plays again, or even the
(18:39):
notion that some people say this is a win now
you're what are we doing? We can't afford Like, come on, guys,
the Cardinals coordinators Drew Petsing and Nick Rawlis they've been
calling plays now for the last two years. Is taking
a game off in an exhibition really that important? I
will again say absolutely not. And you're giving your staff experiences,
(19:04):
you're also preparing You're also preparing them because remember, just
a couple of years ago when Cliff Kingsbury got COVID,
they had to scramble and go to play calling where
they had Spencer Whipple and Sean Coogler handling offensive play calls.
And so in a way, it's it's preparing yourself and
(19:24):
it's developing your coaches to give them a taste. And
in doing so, it gives the coach like Jonathan Gannon
and there and his coordinators ways to evaluate their coaches too,
and you know, as a way to evaluate whether they're
on the same page. You know, talk about why did
(19:45):
you call this plagu why'd you call this play? And
things like that, and like and again, it's the preseason.
If you're going to like that's exactly when you do that.
Just like you play the backups, you play the backup players.
Why not let the backup coaches do something once in
a while. It's not going to impact the regular season.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
No, And again I look at this as like a
couple of old things. Like, first off, you nailed a
lot of it. You know, you want to give those
young guys experience. The other thing is this just think
about this, and maybe it's arrogance, maybe it's I don't know,
I don't know what the word would be, But what
(20:28):
happens if Drew Petsing and Nick Ralis one of or
both get poached after this year? Like don't you want
to know if you have the answer in house and.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Have them done the play calling in that particular scheme
or whatever. I don't know, like or would they run
a difference? I don't, but yeah, you want people to
be in place. You want them to have a plan
in place, just like you want to have a plan
in place for your players. You want to have a
planning place for your coaches.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Right, And so I'm I'm you know again, I just
think it's it's interesting that there was such a there
was such a crazy like hatred towards it, because like,
here's the reality, and this is what I was going
to talk about, Like do you think that Drew Terrellterrell
(21:34):
was like just came in and like created his own
play sheet and was just calm plays all willy nilly,
or do you think he and Drew Pettsing sat down
and like, like you said, like put the preseason game
play together and he's like, hey, here's your you know,
here's your plays in this situation, here's your plays in
this situation, like you know, you do what you feel
(21:56):
is best for these situations, and that's how how we'll
move forward. Like that's how they do it. That's how
they do it on game It's not like it's not like.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
And it's like like the offense is not like Drew's like, Oh,
it's third and one, What do I do?
Speaker 1 (22:11):
What do I do?
Speaker 3 (22:12):
No, they have a play sheet. They have a play
sheet for scenarios. So they've got their court large, they've
got their third and fourth and one, they've got their
second and five tocent. They have literally a set of
plays for every scenario, and then they just call one
of those plays that they've practiced, and they don't call
(22:32):
plays that they haven't practiced dozens of times to success.
Because if they practice like the plays that they had
originally and they suck and practice, you know what they
immediately do they scratch that from the game plan.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Right, And that goes back to my point earlier, Right,
like they might have looked at this and gone like, hey,
we want to specifically defensively, like with Will Johnson or
something like that, like, hey we want to And I
would wager that this was something that they went into
the season with is like, hey, we're comfortable with Will
and you know these coverages, but like we want to
(23:09):
see him try to work in these coverages. So like
let's get him looks in these coverages during the season
or like during the preseason, see where he's at in
his development, so we know how often we can go
this route during the season. And they they have their
own grades, you know, so people going, oh, look at
(23:30):
his PFF grades, they're terrible. Okay, So okay, but you
have to look at it and go, Okay, this is
what we're seeing in that situation or this is what
we've seen from him. So that's how how we'll grade it.
And like you said, oh, we were not ready to
run this with him yet, are like Okay, he's a
(23:51):
little further along than we expected. Like let's let's keep
this in our back pocket for later on. And so
like those are all things that come with the preseason, right,
like like things like oh, can we run you know
these coverages? And I don't want to get too in
the weeds on coverage calls, but like can we run
(24:13):
these coverages? Can we can we do this? Can we
run you know quarters match with him or with our
secondary like with with our big four, big five whatever
how they want to like can we do that or
or is that not something we can do? You know?
And so all of these things are will be stuff
that they look at and evaluate before they get into
(24:37):
the season. And Rales goes, okay, I know in this
situation what we can't run or like what we're what
we're our bread is buttered at right, Like all of
that is what they do. And so root Terrell or
who was it that allegedly called the defense I don't
(24:59):
remember all Ryan Smith like, like again, do you think
that they went in? They're like, hey, we're gonna run
you know, this blitz scheme, and the players are like, coach,
we've never ran that before. I don't care, let's run it.
Like like no, he and Rali sat down and go, okay,
(25:20):
these are the calls that we want to make. There's
the calls we want to see, like let's make sure
we get these looks and specifically let's make sure we
get these players in this position to see how they react.
And all of that is how preseason is supposed to work. Yes,
Like do you think I want to ask you? Because
(25:41):
you know, like obviously this is an interesting topic to us.
Do you think Bills? And I know we can't compare
ourselves to the Bills because the Bills have been to
what the last six Super Bowls? Oh wait, no, that's
the Chiefs. The Bills have never been to the super
Bowl with Josh Allen Sean McDermott. But they're infinitely more
successful than the Cardinals. So you know we can't compare.
(26:04):
But do you think Bills fans are concerned that they
lost thirty eight to zero to the Bears? Like, do
you think? Sure?
Speaker 3 (26:13):
There are some. I'm sure there are some, but I
had I know, I know a Bears fans. I know
a few Bears fans who were going bonkers over Caleb
Williams's ninety seven yard touchdown drive against Buffalo's starting defense.
And I'm going preseason, Yeah, preseason, it doesn't matter. It
doesn't matter. Well, and for me, it comes down to
(26:33):
this as well. There's the debate of execution versus play call.
And I always say this, and it's not to if
we ever criticize a play call. The only time we
ever criticize of play calls because it didn't work right.
If a play call works, it's a good play, right,
(26:54):
And we'll take a couple of couple of playoffs ago
when the the ramp and when the lines were in position,
and they had that fourth and one call and they
had that their third down back end what isn't Renner
or something. I can't remember the guy's name, but he's
a third string running back, but he plays in that
particular package. It's like having a Marit Marcado and they
(27:19):
they got the look they wanted. He was wide open
the flat and he dropped the ball. It's like, what
a terrible play call because you didn't get the he
didn't get the ball into your best player's hand, Like,
what do you mean that play was wide open? And
those are that's a player who like they practiced these plays,
and so I've always like it's always hard as like, well,
(27:40):
they need to be a better play caller, better play caller.
Or are we saying that the play wasn't there, that
the defense just had an answer for it every single time?
Or did the play have a just have a bad
result because the the guys on the field didn't execute it,
(28:00):
Like was there was there a wide open guy? Or
did he did he not run deepen?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Like?
Speaker 3 (28:07):
And so that's always like, well what are we what
are we looking at? Like more than we're the backups
bad offensively and defensively because of bad play calls. Or
had the starters been in the game with those same
play calls, what have they just done better?
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Right? Exactly? And and I can't like what was lost?
And I know people will go.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Three hours, three hours of our life. Well, that's what
it was lost.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I mean, that's why, that's why you got the UFC
fights going on at the same time. Jesse, you don't
have to worry about it. But like, here's my question, genuinely,
like what was lost? I think there was more gain
from it because you gain information of like, all right,
maybe this guy isn't ready, whether it's the play caller
or the player, right, we can't use this, this is
(28:59):
not effective for our team. Or if a starter goes down,
we have to scrap these plays or this list of
coverages or this list of blitzes or the you know,
like it gives you information. That's what the whole point is.
It's not to go three and oh, I mean, I mean.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
They would be it would be wonderful if they like
if the starters, if the starters dominated the starters, and
then the backups dominate the backups, and they just looked
amazing every single time. And then that rolled in the
regular season. But we know it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
But also, let me ask you this, what is gained
by the Cardinals beating the Chiefs twenty to seventeen the
week before m M for.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Warm and fuzzy filling?
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Right exactly? That's all it is. It's like, oh, this
makes me feel like they're going to be good this year.
It's like, well, hopefully I agree.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Then the Seahawks blew the bleuw the Chiefs out, so
now we gotta feel, oh, the Seahawks are good.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Yeah, the Seahawks are way better because they won their
meaningless preseason game by a lot. And but dude, think
about this. All the people that are like, oh my god,
the Seahawks offense is so much better than we expected,
is it? Like, like, that's your genuine takeaway from this game,
(30:22):
is that the Seahawks, the Seahawks offense is that much
better than you expected. Like why would that be your takeaway?
Is God?
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Yes, that's that's what we're doing well.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
And so jess I even saw this like this is
the craziest thing about preseason to me. Right, I even
saw this. I even saw that Gray's Abel, who you
and I both liked. Come, I don't think he's gonna
be a decent, decent player. Grey's Abel own Chris Jones.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Oh geez, Chris Jones was trying. He was definitely trying.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Well, no, he didn't play. Yeah, So like that's the thing.
So like so like people are literally like passing around,
uh a clip and they're like, look at him own
Chris Jones. And I'm like, that's not Chris Jones. So
(31:28):
what are you looking at? And so that's my whole thing.
It's like we're we're just creating this like loop of like, oh,
this is what's important. And it's like, well, no, it's not,
because like what you're saying happened didn't even happen, right, Like,
So again, does it matter? I mean maybe, I mean
(31:51):
George Carl loftis played six snaps, so maybe it was.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
It only ends funny, is it? It only matters if
it ends up mattering? Right? Yeah, the Cardinals are bad
this year, or are disappointing, or don't live up to expectations,
we can always look back at the preseason and just
verify our concerns, and we can just back it right
up and say this is why because the starters didn't
(32:18):
play and had Drew Petsing called the offense against the Broncos,
then their offense would have been ten points better in
against the Seahawks. I don't know, but I don't know.
Football is far more complicated, like it were, like success
at winning football games in the NFL in the regular season.
(32:39):
It's so complicated. Football is such it's a simple game,
but it's a very very complicated game, and so there's
so many, so many factors to everything. But coming to
next on the Rise of here podcast us are Cardinals
talking the web. Let's see if we can talk a
little good and a little bit a little bit of
good in that preseason game that's coming to next and
recips he read We're back on the rise up s
Hee read podcast of US Cardinals talk on the web.
(33:02):
Talking about the positives. I guess the one positive that
we get out think the one is that we're a
game closer and none of the important players got hurt.
But outside of that, I can I can point to
really kind of two two things that I can take
(33:23):
away as a positive right and for me, that's once
again Jacoby Pressett looking solid and I'm gonna pump the breaks. Guys.
Let's remember, Jacoby Prissett is a grizzled venitor and who
has been a starting quarterback. And what has he done
in two weeks. He's got three touchdowns and five possessions
(33:44):
against him guys against him nick cups. And while that
is encouraging to see the way that he operated the offense,
the throws that he made, all of that is good,
but it isn't hyperbobs like guys. So just he looked
good playing against backups, and that's exactly what he should
(34:06):
have done. They believe they have a good backup quarterback,
and a good backup quarterback should look really good against backups.
We also know because we've seen it that Code Prissette
leading a first string offense against first ring defenses is
pretty just fine, nothing special.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
I mean, he's been at best average, and we you know,
kind of went over the stats the other day, but yeah,
I mean you and I are on the same page.
I mean, Brissetts looked good enough. I think there was
a couple offensive guys that you look at, they're like Hey,
they had a good day. John Gaines coming back playing
right card didn't look bad. That was good to see.
(34:48):
He's still kind of light in the in the pants
in terms of being able to get downhill run blocking,
but his movement skills continue to be positive for his
ability in past protection. Right, So those are all good things. Uh.
And then you know, first game as an Arizona Cardinal,
(35:12):
Simi Fajoku everything you kind of hoped he would be
is wide receiver five. Right.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Well, and here's the thing I'm getting the feeling, and
I'll say this. When they signed him and I saw
the contract, it told me when they guarantee salary a
good portion of it, they're planning on that player being
on the team. And I feel there's almost been on
the television broadcast a little bit of propaganda going on,
(35:42):
just a little bit of push the narrative. Because outside
of the two broadcasts, have you heard any reporter, any fan,
or anybody even mentioned Simmi Fojoko in practices or anything.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Right, And then I know, and I know he was injured, right,
he was injured, But even on the on the first broadcast,
they made it's like some I Fojoko's out but he's
a really good special He does really well on special teams.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
And what's funny about that is, you know how many defense,
how many special teams snaps he's played in his career
two hundred and eight, he has not been a full
time special teams player. He might be goad to go
to a special teams I'm not saying he's not, And
I believe that's why he was signed. I think based
on his body type. I believe he was signed specifically
(36:39):
to be there. Zach Pascal. Right, he was there. There's
Zach Pascal too to fill that role as a big
bodied receiver who can do things. And he does have
some upside because he's he's long at six foot four,
he's speedy. He's got some four four five speed as
a six four to two twenty guy. So he's a big,
fast guy. And but nobody was talking to about him,
(37:04):
and so they they they mentioned this like four different
times in the first two preising game where they talked
about his special teams play. Now, he did look good.
That that touchdown catch that he had was a good one.
That was a really nice play. It was a good
throw by by Broussette, and it was a very nice
play to have to go up, go up for in
the end zone. That wasn't an easy play, but that's
(37:25):
a play that you want your receivers to do and
you mean to play on special teams, and I think
that's what we needed to see. But I've said all
along that I think Fojoko is going to make this roster,
and I think there was some narrative. There was some
narrative pushing to make sure that that fans know who
(37:48):
he is, that he's a good special teams player because
he's he's he doesn't make a ton of money, but
his I think his salary is one point one seven million,
it's the minimum for it, but guaranteed a million of it.
And when they when you see the Cardinals guarantee a
million plus in salary to player, you can almost always
pencil them in for the final roster.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Correct, And so you know, you look at it. You
and I weren't surprised by his role or his ability.
We were just kind of surprised that nobody thought that
he was going to be on this team or like
that he was a guy that didn't get, you know,
(38:28):
conversations about being on this team. So it was interesting
to me. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
Yeah, And outside of that.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
I want to shut out Yeah, I want to shout
out ke On Bars. I thought he played well.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
So yes, but what that what that's worth when you're
the last guy in the depth chart on the defensive line, right,
not worth a whole lot, right.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
But I feel like guys like Bars are tough because
like this is the only like NFL film they're going
to have, you know, so like it's when I do
play well, I feel like it is cool because.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
I worth mentioning battle to get them to try out
somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Because like you look at MIKEL. Walker, who had a
really nice game, right, he's gonna be on the roster,
So like him dominating the backup backup backups of the Broncos,
isn't It's not impressive? That's kind of what you know.
And again I'm not taking anything away from what Presette
did the same type of thing, right, Like that's the
expectation a guy like Bars, who got signed super late
(39:27):
in the process, played in the UFL, played in the UFL,
hasn't really had any NFL success. To see him have
a decent game, you're like, oh, okay, good job, congrats,
But Now.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
Mike Walker was a freaking starter two and a half
years ago. He was a full time starter for the Falcons,
so right exactly, and so yeah, that's that's that's that'd
be interesting. But outside of that, there wasn't there wasn't
much to be There were a couple of things. It
was nice to see Andre Bicelli, you know, make a
couple of catches to He seems to stick around forever.
(39:57):
Isaiah Weaver had good and bad. On the good side,
there weren't there were no turnovers, no turnovers at all,
so they kind of shored that up. Blake Gillikin, he's
got a monster, he's a he's a great punter. He's
a very good punter. The seventy yards in the air
punt was unreal. And then then the positive from before
(40:18):
the game when when Tato Mackie caught Chad Ryland drill
a seventy two yarder and can you I don't know
if I believe this, but he said that in practice
with a snapper and a holder, he hit from eighty right.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Crazy.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
That's like, have we reached I don't think And you know,
we had cam little that of the of the Jaguars
had a seventy yarder in the first preseason week. That's
like in a game situation, that seems crazy. That seems crazy,
Like remember when when wasn't it wasn't it a seventy
yarder that that Kingsbury had prayed or try at the
(41:02):
end of the half and it just was abysmal? Correct
that was that was abysmal? Anyway, Coming on next on
the Roses here with podcast Best Our Cardinals talk on
the web. Let's let's kind of let's dive into the bad.
What are the things that we didn't like? Who? Who
are we more down on? And end of the like
(41:23):
that's coming to next and Rice he read We're back
on the Rise of hereite podcast the Best ore Cardinal's
Talk on the web to talk about the final segment,
which is the bad. There's a lot of bad obviously,
but who are we down on? And I think I
want to point out number one that the I think
the biggest bad that came out of this was the
knee injury to Hayden Connor. Like Hayden Connor, their sixth
(41:46):
round pick, has been playing center and guard and he
goes he loses here he injures his knee now I
don't know how serious it is, but when Gannon says
he's gonna miss some time, that tells me weeks weeks
and weeks and.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
So.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
And that happened to Christian Jones last week. And so
we're in a situation where two guys who were one
of the two, at least one of the two is
going to be on the roster as depth. Now neither
one is likely to make the roster or they'll have
to do some finagling because NFL teams can before they
(42:23):
make cuts or as they're making cuts. Like the traditional
way where it had to be before is that only
a player is only eligible to return from from IR
if they were on the initial fifty three, so they
had to be on the roster for a day and
so that would But now over the last two years,
the league has said you can designate up to two
(42:45):
players for return and then another eight so you get
a total of ten, so you can the Cardinals might
need to burn both they're designated for returns, like last
year they did that for both Darius Robinson and Christian Jones.
They put them on IR before or as they were
making final cuts, so they didn't have to burn a
(43:05):
spot on the fifty three, and then Elijah Jones cornerback.
They kept him on the roster for a day and
then put him on IR. Then they reassigned Chris Barnes.
Chris Barnes a linebacker, and I'm guessing if I had
to guess that both of those guys are going to
miss significant time, whether it's a good chunk of the
(43:27):
beginning of the season or if it's season ending, my
guess is both will be on IR and that that
kind of changes the changes the roster for the offensive
line and the depth, right because we were counting on
like I feel like that, especially if we think that
Hernanz is going to start the year on pup, which
I believe you will. Six guys are locks, and I
(43:50):
think actually I think eight. I think the the eight
man rotation of the offensive line of set. You've got
your starters, You've got Kevin Beach. I think Nick Leverett
has locked down the guard backup job, and John Gaines
is going to be the backup center. So I think
they got their eight. It's just a matter who's going
to be nine and who's going to be maybe ten.
(44:10):
And I think and I was projecting both Jones and
Connor would be those guys, and those will be likely
inactive all season, but they're not going to start on
the roster, I bet. And that's a bummer because a
guy that because it feels like what we're hearing that
they really kind of like Connor that despite the six
(44:33):
round pick, you know, they like him enough to get
them a lot of work at center and to give
them that depth that they need. And so that that
knocks down some of the changes the roster. And I'm
actually gonna be putting a writing an article either today
or tomorrow about the factor. These are some injuries. These
are injuries that are going to impact the final roster
(44:55):
decisions because you've got three guys on pop, four guys
on PUP. You've got Justin Jones in his knee. We
don't know how serious that is. We've got Christian Jones
and his knees. We've got Hayden Connor's knee. So there's
these injuries will impact how the final fifty three is
put together.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Yeah, and you know, I don't know if you saw
what Gambo said today right that it sounds like Walter
Nolan probably starts the season on the designated to return lists.
Guess what.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
I called it.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
So if that does happen again, that's speculation from Gambo, right,
So we'll we'll we'll label it as such. But with
with that information, you have to look at it and
go okay, well that so who's the other guy? Right?
(45:50):
Is it Christian Jones or is it Hayden Connor or
do they try to, like you said, sneak one through.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Then we and even with with Nolan, they don't have
to burn one on him because he's gonna start on pup.
That doesn't count. That doesn't count because and if and
it would be they don't need to put him on
IR that would be dumb. They don't need to put
him on I R.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Yeah, so you know where do they The way that
it's all setting up is again that this is a
it's a depth thing, right, Like you have to figure
(46:30):
out who I don't want to say matters more, but
who would be more impactful if you can only designate
one at the time, let's say, because like you said,
with will Hernandez looming and Nick Leverett having played well,
(46:56):
like you said, is Hayden Connor as important as as
Christian Jones in the you know scope of all of this.
That's that's how I would look at it that, you know,
because you probably don't want to keep one of Josh
(47:16):
Fryer or Jeremiah Buyers, right and obviously like the Kelvin
Beacham's gonna be on the roster. We know that, and
so it just becomes this like puzzle of how you
get to the to that first fifty three. And like
you said, like there are ways around it, right, like
(47:37):
you Jones could or Connor can make the roster and
then then you put him on I r after, But
I mean I would just you would think that that Jones,
just based on what they have on the roster, would
be the higher priority, right, Like I know Hernandez is
(47:59):
is you know, you and I kind of joked about
it in a text message like physically looking Hernandez does
not look close but looking he's.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
A big guy. He was looking extra large.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
Yeah, like he has not missed many meals or beers.
So so you know you look at that and you go, okay, maybe,
but but you and I have said all along like
he's probably not ready to October anyways, right right, right, So,
and then.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
The Cardinals have a situation here where they have a
lot of and if and I'm gonna I'm gonna nitpick
on this because you know, Gambo's saying that they might
have to start that no one's going to start in
the season. I R does he need to return? That's
a bad way to that. They're not going to do
that because he doesn't need to go on IR unless
they activate him off of PUP. If they active him
(48:51):
off of PUP before the before roster cut downs, which
be foolish.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
They don't.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
They don't have to burn one of those because guys
on PUP are already protected. Guys on pupp are already protected,
and if you keep them on PUP, they're gonna miss
four games, but all of them are eligible to return.
All of them are eligible return. You don't have to burn.
You don't have to burn a guy one of your
IR designations. So that's gonna be really interesting because I'm
all those guys on PUP. Yeah that yeah, lots of stuff,
(49:19):
lots of stuff. Can you continue on?
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Sorry? I no, No, that's no. That's what I was
gonna say, though. It was like, that's what makes the difference,
because I feel like if they for some reason they
do activate him, and they did designate him to return, right,
Like why but that would basically mean, uh, that would
(49:42):
basically mean that you only have, you know, like you said,
one other choice to make, so so who would win
that argument?
Speaker 4 (49:52):
Yeah, I genuinely don't know. I and and we we don't.
Also the other thing we don't just don't know how
severe the knee injuries are. Maybe they were season ending
to begin with. It doesn't even matter.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
Right, well, and that's always the fun thing with Gannon, right, like.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
Like if he's gonna miss the year, you could just
tell us, he could just tell us.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Right, Well, that's my whole like the whole ba lah
Nichols thing.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
And I'm like, I I will be shocked if he
plays this year. The fact that he suffered a neck
injury in week six and still can't practice, then like,
well it is he's careers cooked. Basically his careers cooked.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
Well you know me, I'm like, like, what are we hiding?
Like who cares? Let's just get this, Like that's always
been my philosophy with this stuff. It's like you're not
like there's really literally no nothing gained by doing that, right, Like,
oh gosh, Christian Jones has a torn you know, blah
(50:58):
blah blah, and he's gonna miss the season, Like, oh god,
that surprised the Saints. No, Like, I've just never understood that.
And you know, I've always been with you on this thing,
like just such a just such a hokey thing to do.
But you know, it seems like post COVID, like that
(51:20):
became kind of the standard for them, right like, oh,
we're not going to give out any information. It's like,
who cares.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
Anybody else in terms of play? I think in terms
of players, I thought Clayton Tune has really not he
he has helped, not helped himself. And we lauded him
a year ago. We lauded him a year ago because
from rookie preseason to last present there was a jump.
(51:50):
He's not looked anybody like, he doesn't look any better,
and you just told me before the show he looks
abjectly worse than he did. I'm like, I think he
heard himself. Like what do you think about the the
the linebacker situation with Mike Walker and Owen Papo. People
are saying cut them both. I'm like, I still think.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
I just don't understand why people I don't think I
said the week before, I Thinkpo's probably done right, Like,
but you know, again, I don't get an I think
it's a.
Speaker 3 (52:27):
I think it's a toss up between Walker and Papo
because both do well on special teams.
Speaker 1 (52:31):
Right.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
Walker is a is an establish special teams player. Papo
did really well in special teams for him, but he's
also younger and extremely athletic, and whoever's going to be
in that fourth inside backer spot on the roster, they're
only playing special teams and so it I think it
comes down to that. And but for me, it's a
toss up and Papo is his struggle. It's does it
(52:53):
feel like he struggled more this preseason than he did
all last preseason?
Speaker 1 (52:58):
Yeah, and it's not. It's not shocking in the sense
that they probably have asked him to do more or
put more on him. And so that's you know, that's
that's a common thing that happens as as you know,
preseason goes and it goes back to what we talked
about at the beginning, right like, hey, guys, this is
(53:19):
what this is what happens with pre seasons and things
like that, Like you end up putting more on a
guy and you learn like oh they can't do something,
or they can do something, or you know, and so
for Papo it's been unfortunately like, oh, this is not
(53:42):
what he's good at, which probably shouldn't you know, or
or you know, he's not doing what we expected or
growing like we expected him to, Like this is unfortunately
an instance where he's going to be I don't say
that they're going to move on, but like you know
that we might have to start to look to move on,
right like, because he's not he's not taking the steps
(54:06):
we were hoping that he would and that all you know,
that's all just stuff that that comes with it. And
trust me, we all want to see these guys succeed,
like we have no skin in the game of like
I told you when Papa was gonna suck, like nobody
like we want to see these guys be good. We
(54:28):
want to see them succeed, and when when they don't,
it becomes it sucks because you're always hopeful. And you know,
I talk about all the time, these these day three
picks that are those are the players that really make
learning teams from being good to great, right like when
(54:50):
you can when you start to get players on day
three that are not just impact players, but they become
like lynch pins in your team and what you do
like you're you're a good branchise then and and that's
what we've talked about with Cardinals. They just haven't with
this group yet, they haven't got there. And it's not
(55:12):
unheard of that it hasn't happened yet. I mean we're
talking about year three of a of a basically a
complete rebuild, So like now would be the time to
start seeing dividends pay with with guys like Rabbit and
potentially Cody Simon and and you know, those guys taking
taking the bull by the horns. And it's also in
(55:34):
the same way upsetting is probably not the right word,
but like it gets pretty annoying that some of these
guys just have bad luck with health or or whatever,
right like that that you you know, you've got this
and then all of a sudden, it's like crap, Like
he's hurting. He's hurt now, like h So all of
(55:57):
those things come into it and come into play, and
that's why you have to you know, that's why the
team in and of itself is so vital and the
whole is bigger than the sum of its parts, because
you have to get to that point and they're just
they're still working through it, but you know they should
have played the starters.
Speaker 3 (56:16):
So and with that, we will wrap up this edition
of the Rise of Her podcast mist Our Cardinals Talk
on the Web. We will be back later this week
where we look ahead to the final preseason game. What
we're going to look for maybe I guess what we
can do. Then we will also give our fifty three
man roster projections before the game. I've already got mine
(56:37):
up on the site from earlier this week, but we
will not get on before roster cuts. In fact, will
probably record about the time final rosters are released. Hopefully
they don't make us wait forever otherwise, but if we're
recording at night, it'll definitely be the case. But that'll
wrap this one. We don't know if the Cardinals starters
(56:58):
are going to play in the finale. Don't count on it.
They've never done it. So with that that's seth Cox,
I'm Jessper. We'll be back again soon. Thanks listen, Thanks
for listening. As always, thanks for listening.
Speaker 5 (57:09):
To the latest edition of the Rise Up Sea Red podcast.
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(57:30):
soon for the best hour of Cardinals talk on the web.
Rise up Red cea b red Sea Red and of
course Rise up Sea Red.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
Wires. Out there is out
Speaker 2 (58:04):
There is a
Z Yes.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
This is the Rise Up Sea Red podcast, all about
the Arizona Cardinals and the NFL, featuring insider and outsider perspectives.
Enjoy the best hour of Cardinals talk on the web.
Now Here are your hosts, Jess Root.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
And Seth Cox, Hellowers and the Cardinals fans and welcome
to the latest edition of the Rise Up Sacred podcast,
the bestar of Cardinals Talk on the web. I'm your
host Jess Root from cardswire dot com, the USA Today
NFL wire site that covers yours and a Cardinals episode
six eighty eight recording on a Tuesday afternoon with my
(00:46):
co host Seth Cox from Revenge of the Birds dot
com espination's Arizona Cardinals site. And it is we get
to talk about the Cardinals second preseason game. It's our
game review and it was an ugly when Seth wasn't
it there. There is almost nothing that we can take
away from that game other than it was a preseason
game and we are one game closer because there wasn't
(01:08):
a whole lot of anything to like, No, there wasn't
and you.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Know, I I you know, was honestly flipping between the
UFC card and watching the game, because you know, as
I've said before, there's not much you're going to glean
from a live viewing of preseason games when you're trying
(01:34):
to like gauge what players have or where they're at
in their process, right, and and so you're watching enough
to be able to talk about the game shortly after,
and you're like, you know, what we saw article, But
(01:54):
for the most part, it's a pretty it's a fairly
quick viewing, and and you know you've got it's it's
not like Sundays in the fall, right where you're dialed
in and there's nothing else going on. And so on
first viewing it it looked bad, and quite frankly, on
second viewing it didn't look much better. But I think
(02:17):
it was I think there was some right, I think
there were some things. There are some things that we
could gain from all of this. And and you know,
it's something that we'll talk about in this because I've
learned again obviously much much different, but I've learned in
(02:46):
in my short time just coaching in in high school
that like the reality becomes there are times, especially in
scrimmages and then you know, the preseason games, which is
what basically a glorified scrimmage that they'll coaches will put
(03:12):
players in a position to see what they can do
or as we'll discuss in a little bit what they
can't do. And sometimes that looks bad, and that's okay
because it gives it gives the coaches an idea of
where they're at with with players. So you know, that's
(03:34):
how I look at this game more than anything else.
But you know, we got a lot to a lot
to discuss and it'll be it'll be a nice quick
quick show. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Well, what I want to talk about first is the
the fact that and we knew, we figured this would happen.
We called this is that when the Cardinals played their
starters in the first preseason game, we said, don't expect
them to play the rest of the way because they
had the joint practice. They've never played, and it ended
up being the case. They didn't play their starters after
(04:10):
the joint practice. That's three years running out the Cardinals
haven't done that. And then the third preseason game, you
don't play your starters. And so they had what it
was a couple hours, they had a joint practice on Thursday.
They were in I think they said on the TV
broadcast fifty five plays, which in its majority of the
starters get. They treat the they treat the joint practices
(04:33):
like like they do game situations, and so it's pretty
much with their starters. And the TV broadcast said they
got fifty five plays, and so the decision was made
that they didn't need to get the work in the
preseason game, and so they did all backups. And honestly,
(04:53):
the question has been, well, don't they need the work.
Don't the starters need the work? Look look at what's
happened with this previous years where we're not learning anything.
And my case, Mike, well tell me, tell me your
take on the Cardinals not playing their starters, because I
was one hundred percent I never believed they were going
to play in the first place.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Yeah, and you know, again based on the fact that
they had a very physical and you know, physical and
aggressive joint practice, like you said, there was no real
need for it. I mean, we talked about it before
the game. I would be surprised if if you know,
(05:38):
these guys played, and some of them did, right. We
saw We saw Will Johnson, a.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Will Johnson and a King Davis B Gather. Those are
the only two that we would consider likely starters when
and we wondered if Will would get any work and
he barely play was it eight snaps?
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, now's and and to that point, right, like it
was one of those situations where there was a specific
reason he was playing and they saw or didn't see
what they wanted or didn't want to see, and and
you know, got him off out of there. It wasn't
It wasn't a game where it's like, hey, we need
to see all this work. It was a game where
(06:15):
it was like, hey, there's a couple of things we
want to see, like go out there, get some reps
in let's see how it looks. And again I'm I'm
okay with that, Like I think the joint practice is
a little bit better of a thing. You know, you
and I talked about that on on last Thursday, right,
like the reality becomes you can you can simulate the
(06:36):
game a little better and a little more controlled. And
I know people would be like, well, you don't want
the game to be controlled, No, but you do in
preseason right and scrimmages for evaluation.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
You'd rather that And it does take away some of
the it reduces the risk that you have in live game.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Action, right and so so and so that's one of
the things that we looked at in this situation. And
so for me, I like all of that. You know,
I'm I'm of the opinion right now that that they're
they feel comfortable with where they're at, and that makes
the fan base uncomfortable because people are going, well, why
(07:21):
would they feel good about where they're at? And it's like,
hold on, hold on, It's okay that they feel positive
about where they're at. You don't have to feel positive.
I don't have to feel positive. But they feel comfortable
with what they have and where they're at and where
they're moving towards. And so those things make them them
(07:43):
look at a situation like a second preseason game against
the Broncos, you know, two threes and on and go, okay,
not worth the risk for Kyler, for James, for you
know these guys. And and I've seen other people say like,
oh well, yeah, James Connor doesn't need to work, but
(08:03):
like what about Kyler Murray and Trey Benson. It's like, okay,
so wait, you're going to put Kyler Murray out there,
but you're not gonna put let's say paras jauntson junior
out there.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Sounds that's nonsense.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Sounds.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Do not put Kyler behind your second team line in
the preseason, No.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
And so and so for me, it's like, look, it's
an all or nothing situation. And if you're gonna say like, hey,
this guy doesn't need it, I'm comfortable with that. And
that's how that's fine, you know. And again I'm not
a huge preseason guy anyways, Like if you have a
(08:42):
joint practice, I should say I'm not a huge preseason guy,
because again, I don't know how much you can glean
from preseason. You've got you've got desperate guys trying to
make rosters. You've got other guys just trying to stay healthy. Right, Like,
there's a there's a big discrepancy in who's putting in
(09:02):
effort and who's not.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
And go ahead, And I was going to say, is
that the maybe, maybe there was the slightest chance that
that Jonathan Gannon wanted to get his starters some work
on Saturday. It didn't make any sense to put the
starters in just to put the starters in. If Sean
Payton wasn't ever going to start his starters, get his
(09:26):
starters playing, you learn and do you learn nothing if
you know your starter's going against twos and it's honestly, publicly,
it's a lose lose situation because if they look good,
we're like, well you do Worgan's backups, And then they
don't look great, then you're like, oh crap, they suck everyone,
fire everyone, right.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And that's exactly what it is. Justin like to me that,
like you said, it was literally no reason, like okay,
as soon as Sean Payton called the audible of like, hey,
we're not playing our starters and there was never an
audible right, like that was what he had was the plan.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
It's just he's the one who said it.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
But as soon as he made that call, yeah, you
and I were like, okay, there's nothing to worry about.
And I get it again, guys, I understand like there
are people that'll be like, no, no, they need the work. Okay,
that's your opinion, and that's fine. You one thousand percent
can have that opinion. I I don't think it's a
negative opinion. I don't think it's a positive opinion.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Well, and what we've learned over the course of many
years of watching football, there's not necessarily a right or
wrong way to do the preseason, because there's teams who
succeed doing almost nothing in the preseason. There's teams who
succeeded who do everything in the preseason. There are teams
who are great in the preseason who are terrible in
(10:48):
the regular season. You know, I'm old enough to remember
many many years where they go four and oho and
three in one of the preseason, then win five games
for the entire regular season. And like, the preseason is
like you can't look at like it's literally situational and
it's individual. Like you're looking like you want late in
(11:10):
the game. Ideally, you want the game to be in
a situation. You want your starters to compete well, and
you want the guys to the back of the roster
doing winning behaviors, and you want them to be able
to put them put the team in a position to
win because winning is fun. But ultimately it's individual. You're
(11:30):
looking at individual things. You're evaluating every player, you're evaluating rotations,
you're even evaluating how you coach and the type of
plays that you call in those situations. I mean, it's
all like the outcome of preseason games is literally nothing.
It's literally nothing, and which is why people laughed. Remember
(11:51):
the winning streak that the Ravens had, what twenty three
straight preseason wins, and people that were mocking John Harboff
for that because and he's you know, he's a hardball
and he wants to win. He's like, we compete, we compete,
we want to win. I'm like, it's not that deep, guys,
it's not that deep.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Right, it's not. And that's the hard part. And you know,
so much of it just comes down to the reps, right,
And and something we'll talk about shortly is like how
kind of limited or or boxed in the team is
where the team puts themselves in and and people you
(12:38):
know go, oh, man, I can't believe, you know, I
can't believe they did x Y or Z or didn't
do x Y or Z. And it's like it's the preseason.
I can like, you know, again, like I hate always
going back to high school stuff with this, but like if,
for instance, when we have a scrimmage this week at
(13:02):
Jessice School, by the way, when we have a scrimmage
this week, like they're not going to show anything, They're
gonna run their base sets, they're gonna run their base coverages.
They might blitz every once in a while, but like
it's going to be very contained because one, you can't
hit the quarterback, and at least in the preseason you
can hit a quarterback, right like in these scrimmages and stuff,
(13:25):
you can't. And so teams utilize this and go, okay,
like here are here are the you know, if you're
gonna get fifty snaps or what'd you say? The Cardinals
had fifty five snaps in the joint practice.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
That is what they said on the in the broadcast.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Okay, so fifty five snaps. You know what happens in
those they go, they go, okay, here's we're going to go.
You know, we're going to run these and like you said,
in these scenarios, right like in these situations and and
(14:06):
this is what we want to see. And and you
know what's even crazier, sometimes the defense will go, okay,
we'll give you this look so you can get the
look you want, right like, Like so in those joint practices,
for instance, there might be a scenario where you know,
pet Thing's like, hey, we're doing this, can you guys
give us this look? Right or vice versa, right, Like
(14:28):
the defense like, hey, we can you show us something
out of this Uh, we we want to we want
to try something out of this look. Or you get
to see what we need, how we need to adjust
on this look. Like that's how it's how it's done.
And so like when you're doing that, it's so much
more valuable than a preseason game when you're like, all right,
(14:52):
well we're gonna run you know, X, Y and Z.
And then a team like we joked about a couple
weeks ago, right the first year with Cliff and the Raiders,
a team gets a hair, a wild hair, and all
of a sudden, they're bringing pressures from all over and
they're doing wild stuff that most teams would never do
in a preseason game. But they were trying to make
(15:13):
a statement, you know. And like you said, like with Harbaugh,
it's like there's a lot of teams that look at
the preseason and go, hey, I need to you know,
we want to see this worked one, Like we just
want to see us working. And you know, I'm just
gonna throw something out there, cover two, right, and we're
not going to worry about anything else, and we're gonna
(15:34):
run cover two and the other team goes, hey, they're
just in cover two. Let's run this, this and this,
knowing that it beats cover too easily, and and the
fans will go, what the hell, why are we just
getting killed in this? And it's like, well, they're obviously
trying to work on something, Like I get it. It's annoying,
but it's done nine times out of ten, and I
won't say every time, but nine times out of ten
(15:56):
it's done with a purpose and and for a purpose.
So yeah, like I just you know, the overall like
did it look good? Just and I've talked about that.
Did it look good? Hell?
Speaker 2 (16:09):
No?
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Like absolutely, like, no, it did not look good. In fact,
it looked the opposite of good. Is it something to
be concerned about? Well, if the twenty seven top players
get injured for the Cardinals, absolutely, like it's it's very concerning.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
And they don't game plan against They don't have a
plan for particular looks or of things. That's the other
thing is that they're not They literally don't game plan, yeah,
or they don't make defensive game plan for their themselves.
They have their defensive game plan for themselves, but they
are not studying film of the other team on how
to counter these offensive defensive looks. It's it's it's just nonsense.
(16:52):
It's nonsense, I tell you. Coming on EXCE and the
Rise of Secret podcast, mister Cardinals talk lib something else
are upset about. And that was a revelation that that
honestly shouldn't be too surprising. That's coming an extent. Rice
ups He read. We're back on the Rise of Here
podcast Best Our Cardinals Talk. On the episode episode six
hundred and eighty eight, we're talking about the cardinals twenty
(17:12):
seven to seven preseason loss to the Denver Broncos over
the weekend at empower Field at Mile High. Jonathan Gannon
came out and said after the game that he that
neither Nick Rowlis nor Drew Petsing called plays in that game.
Rallis who typically is on the on the sideline calling plays.
(17:34):
He was up in the booth. He didn't reveal who
it was. And that was one of the first things
that kind of mentioned is that in that loss is
like the play calls were by someone else and everyone's like,
ha ha, well, don't do that again. And John Josh White,
I don't know where he got the informatio off as
he got it that it was Ryan Smith, their their
cornerbacks coach, was calling the defensive place, and Drew Torrell,
(17:55):
their receivers coach and passing in quarter at coordinator, was
calling the offensive place in that game. Interesting note is
that you know that isn't, by the way, new, That's
not a new concept for the Cardinals. After all, Bruce
Arians used to do it every preseason. Harold Goodwin would
(18:17):
call clays in the preseason, giving his staff experience they needed. Heck,
Cliff Kingsbury had had Kyler Murray do it one game,
and so it's not uncommon. And it isn't as simple
as saying, oh, the offense and the defense were bad,
don't ever let them call plays again, or even the
(18:39):
notion that some people say this is a win now
you're what are we doing? We can't afford Like, come on, guys,
the Cardinals coordinators Drew Petsing and Nick Rawlis they've been
calling plays now for the last two years. Is taking
a game off in an exhibition really that important? I
will again say absolutely not. And you're giving your staff experiences,
(19:04):
you're also preparing You're also preparing them because remember, just
a couple of years ago when Cliff Kingsbury got COVID,
they had to scramble and go to play calling where
they had Spencer Whipple and Sean Coogler handling offensive play calls.
And so in a way, it's it's preparing yourself and
(19:24):
it's developing your coaches to give them a taste. And
in doing so, it gives the coach like Jonathan Gannon
and there and his coordinators ways to evaluate their coaches too,
and you know, as a way to evaluate whether they're
on the same page. You know, talk about why did
(19:45):
you call this plagu why'd you call this play? And
things like that, and like and again, it's the preseason.
If you're going to like that's exactly when you do that.
Just like you play the backups, you play the backup players.
Why not let the backup coaches do something once in
a while. It's not going to impact the regular season.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
No, And again I look at this as like a
couple of old things. Like, first off, you nailed a
lot of it. You know, you want to give those
young guys experience. The other thing is this just think
about this, and maybe it's arrogance, maybe it's I don't know,
I don't know what the word would be, But what
(20:28):
happens if Drew Petsing and Nick Ralis one of or
both get poached after this year? Like don't you want
to know if you have the answer in house and.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Have them done the play calling in that particular scheme
or whatever. I don't know, like or would they run
a difference? I don't, but yeah, you want people to
be in place. You want them to have a plan
in place, just like you want to have a plan
in place for your players. You want to have a
planning place for your coaches.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Right, And so I'm I'm you know again, I just
think it's it's interesting that there was such a there
was such a crazy like hatred towards it, because like,
here's the reality, and this is what I was going
to talk about, Like do you think that Drew Terrellterrell
(21:34):
was like just came in and like created his own
play sheet and was just calm plays all willy nilly,
or do you think he and Drew Pettsing sat down
and like, like you said, like put the preseason game
play together and he's like, hey, here's your you know,
here's your plays in this situation, here's your plays in
this situation, like you know, you do what you feel
(21:56):
is best for these situations, and that's how how we'll
move forward. Like that's how they do it. That's how
they do it on game It's not like it's not like.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
And it's like like the offense is not like Drew's like, Oh,
it's third and one, What do I do?
Speaker 1 (22:11):
What do I do?
Speaker 3 (22:12):
No, they have a play sheet. They have a play
sheet for scenarios. So they've got their court large, they've
got their third and fourth and one, they've got their
second and five tocent. They have literally a set of
plays for every scenario, and then they just call one
of those plays that they've practiced, and they don't call
(22:32):
plays that they haven't practiced dozens of times to success.
Because if they practice like the plays that they had
originally and they suck and practice, you know what they
immediately do they scratch that from the game plan.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Right, And that goes back to my point earlier, Right,
like they might have looked at this and gone like, hey,
we want to specifically defensively, like with Will Johnson or
something like that, like, hey we want to And I
would wager that this was something that they went into
the season with is like, hey, we're comfortable with Will
and you know these coverages, but like we want to
(23:09):
see him try to work in these coverages. So like
let's get him looks in these coverages during the season
or like during the preseason, see where he's at in
his development, so we know how often we can go
this route during the season. And they they have their
own grades, you know, so people going, oh, look at
(23:30):
his PFF grades, they're terrible. Okay, So okay, but you
have to look at it and go, Okay, this is
what we're seeing in that situation or this is what
we've seen from him. So that's how how we'll grade it.
And like you said, oh, we were not ready to
run this with him yet, are like Okay, he's a
(23:51):
little further along than we expected. Like let's let's keep
this in our back pocket for later on. And so
like those are all things that come with the preseason, right,
like like things like oh, can we run you know
these coverages? And I don't want to get too in
the weeds on coverage calls, but like can we run
(24:13):
these coverages? Can we can we do this? Can we
run you know quarters match with him or with our
secondary like with with our big four, big five whatever
how they want to like can we do that or
or is that not something we can do? You know?
And so all of these things are will be stuff
that they look at and evaluate before they get into
(24:37):
the season. And Rales goes, okay, I know in this
situation what we can't run or like what we're what
we're our bread is buttered at right, Like all of
that is what they do. And so root Terrell or
who was it that allegedly called the defense I don't
(24:59):
remember all Ryan Smith like, like again, do you think
that they went in? They're like, hey, we're gonna run
you know, this blitz scheme, and the players are like, coach,
we've never ran that before. I don't care, let's run it.
Like like no, he and Rali sat down and go, okay,
(25:20):
these are the calls that we want to make. There's
the calls we want to see, like let's make sure
we get these looks and specifically let's make sure we
get these players in this position to see how they react.
And all of that is how preseason is supposed to work. Yes,
Like do you think I want to ask you? Because
(25:41):
you know, like obviously this is an interesting topic to us.
Do you think Bills? And I know we can't compare
ourselves to the Bills because the Bills have been to
what the last six Super Bowls? Oh wait, no, that's
the Chiefs. The Bills have never been to the super
Bowl with Josh Allen Sean McDermott. But they're infinitely more
successful than the Cardinals. So you know we can't compare.
(26:04):
But do you think Bills fans are concerned that they
lost thirty eight to zero to the Bears? Like, do
you think? Sure?
Speaker 3 (26:13):
There are some. I'm sure there are some, but I
had I know, I know a Bears fans. I know
a few Bears fans who were going bonkers over Caleb
Williams's ninety seven yard touchdown drive against Buffalo's starting defense.
And I'm going preseason, Yeah, preseason, it doesn't matter. It
doesn't matter. Well, and for me, it comes down to
(26:33):
this as well. There's the debate of execution versus play call.
And I always say this, and it's not to if
we ever criticize a play call. The only time we
ever criticize of play calls because it didn't work right.
If a play call works, it's a good play, right,
(26:54):
And we'll take a couple of couple of playoffs ago
when the the ramp and when the lines were in position,
and they had that fourth and one call and they
had that their third down back end what isn't Renner
or something. I can't remember the guy's name, but he's
a third string running back, but he plays in that
particular package. It's like having a Marit Marcado and they
(27:19):
they got the look they wanted. He was wide open
the flat and he dropped the ball. It's like, what
a terrible play call because you didn't get the he
didn't get the ball into your best player's hand, Like,
what do you mean that play was wide open? And
those are that's a player who like they practiced these plays,
and so I've always like it's always hard as like, well,
(27:40):
they need to be a better play caller, better play caller.
Or are we saying that the play wasn't there, that
the defense just had an answer for it every single time?
Or did the play have a just have a bad
result because the the guys on the field didn't execute it,
(28:00):
Like was there was there a wide open guy? Or
did he did he not run deepen?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Like?
Speaker 3 (28:07):
And so that's always like, well what are we what
are we looking at? Like more than we're the backups
bad offensively and defensively because of bad play calls. Or
had the starters been in the game with those same
play calls, what have they just done better?
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Right? Exactly? And and I can't like what was lost?
And I know people will go.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Three hours, three hours of our life. Well, that's what
it was lost.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I mean, that's why, that's why you got the UFC
fights going on at the same time. Jesse, you don't
have to worry about it. But like, here's my question, genuinely,
like what was lost? I think there was more gain
from it because you gain information of like, all right,
maybe this guy isn't ready, whether it's the play caller
or the player, right, we can't use this, this is
(28:59):
not effective for our team. Or if a starter goes down,
we have to scrap these plays or this list of
coverages or this list of blitzes or the you know,
like it gives you information. That's what the whole point is.
It's not to go three and oh, I mean, I mean.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
They would be it would be wonderful if they like
if the starters, if the starters dominated the starters, and
then the backups dominate the backups, and they just looked
amazing every single time. And then that rolled in the
regular season. But we know it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
But also, let me ask you this, what is gained
by the Cardinals beating the Chiefs twenty to seventeen the
week before m M for.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Warm and fuzzy filling?
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Right exactly? That's all it is. It's like, oh, this
makes me feel like they're going to be good this year.
It's like, well, hopefully I agree.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Then the Seahawks blew the bleuw the Chiefs out, so
now we gotta feel, oh, the Seahawks are good.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Yeah, the Seahawks are way better because they won their
meaningless preseason game by a lot. And but dude, think
about this. All the people that are like, oh my god,
the Seahawks offense is so much better than we expected,
is it? Like, like, that's your genuine takeaway from this game,
(30:22):
is that the Seahawks, the Seahawks offense is that much
better than you expected. Like why would that be your takeaway?
Is God?
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Yes, that's that's what we're doing well.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
And so jess I even saw this like this is
the craziest thing about preseason to me. Right, I even
saw this. I even saw that Gray's Abel, who you
and I both liked. Come, I don't think he's gonna
be a decent, decent player. Grey's Abel own Chris Jones.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Oh geez, Chris Jones was trying. He was definitely trying.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Well, no, he didn't play. Yeah, So like that's the thing.
So like so like people are literally like passing around,
uh a clip and they're like, look at him own
Chris Jones. And I'm like, that's not Chris Jones. So
(31:28):
what are you looking at? And so that's my whole thing.
It's like we're we're just creating this like loop of like, oh,
this is what's important. And it's like, well, no, it's not,
because like what you're saying happened didn't even happen, right, Like,
So again, does it matter? I mean maybe, I mean
(31:51):
George Carl loftis played six snaps, so maybe it was.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
It only ends funny, is it? It only matters if
it ends up mattering? Right? Yeah, the Cardinals are bad
this year, or are disappointing, or don't live up to expectations,
we can always look back at the preseason and just
verify our concerns, and we can just back it right
up and say this is why because the starters didn't
(32:18):
play and had Drew Petsing called the offense against the Broncos,
then their offense would have been ten points better in
against the Seahawks. I don't know, but I don't know.
Football is far more complicated, like it were, like success
at winning football games in the NFL in the regular season.
(32:39):
It's so complicated. Football is such it's a simple game,
but it's a very very complicated game, and so there's
so many, so many factors to everything. But coming to
next on the Rise of here podcast us are Cardinals
talking the web. Let's see if we can talk a
little good and a little bit a little bit of
good in that preseason game that's coming to next and
recips he read We're back on the rise up s
Hee read podcast of US Cardinals talk on the web.
(33:02):
Talking about the positives. I guess the one positive that
we get out think the one is that we're a
game closer and none of the important players got hurt.
But outside of that, I can I can point to
really kind of two two things that I can take
(33:23):
away as a positive right and for me, that's once
again Jacoby Pressett looking solid and I'm gonna pump the breaks. Guys.
Let's remember, Jacoby Prissett is a grizzled venitor and who
has been a starting quarterback. And what has he done
in two weeks. He's got three touchdowns and five possessions
(33:44):
against him guys against him nick cups. And while that
is encouraging to see the way that he operated the offense,
the throws that he made, all of that is good,
but it isn't hyperbobs like guys. So just he looked
good playing against backups, and that's exactly what he should
(34:06):
have done. They believe they have a good backup quarterback,
and a good backup quarterback should look really good against backups.
We also know because we've seen it that Code Prissette
leading a first string offense against first ring defenses is
pretty just fine, nothing special.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
I mean, he's been at best average, and we you know,
kind of went over the stats the other day, but yeah,
I mean you and I are on the same page.
I mean, Brissetts looked good enough. I think there was
a couple offensive guys that you look at, they're like Hey,
they had a good day. John Gaines coming back playing
right card didn't look bad. That was good to see.
(34:48):
He's still kind of light in the in the pants
in terms of being able to get downhill run blocking,
but his movement skills continue to be positive for his
ability in past protection. Right, So those are all good things. Uh.
And then you know, first game as an Arizona Cardinal,
(35:12):
Simi Fajoku everything you kind of hoped he would be
is wide receiver five. Right.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Well, and here's the thing I'm getting the feeling, and
I'll say this. When they signed him and I saw
the contract, it told me when they guarantee salary a
good portion of it, they're planning on that player being
on the team. And I feel there's almost been on
the television broadcast a little bit of propaganda going on,
(35:42):
just a little bit of push the narrative. Because outside
of the two broadcasts, have you heard any reporter, any fan,
or anybody even mentioned Simmi Fojoko in practices or anything.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Right, And then I know, and I know he was injured, right,
he was injured, But even on the on the first broadcast,
they made it's like some I Fojoko's out but he's
a really good special He does really well on special teams.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
And what's funny about that is, you know how many defense,
how many special teams snaps he's played in his career
two hundred and eight, he has not been a full
time special teams player. He might be goad to go
to a special teams I'm not saying he's not, And
I believe that's why he was signed. I think based
on his body type. I believe he was signed specifically
(36:39):
to be there. Zach Pascal. Right, he was there. There's
Zach Pascal too to fill that role as a big
bodied receiver who can do things. And he does have
some upside because he's he's long at six foot four,
he's speedy. He's got some four four five speed as
a six four to two twenty guy. So he's a big,
fast guy. And but nobody was talking to about him,
(37:04):
and so they they they mentioned this like four different
times in the first two preising game where they talked
about his special teams play. Now, he did look good.
That that touchdown catch that he had was a good one.
That was a really nice play. It was a good
throw by by Broussette, and it was a very nice
play to have to go up, go up for in
the end zone. That wasn't an easy play, but that's
(37:25):
a play that you want your receivers to do and
you mean to play on special teams, and I think
that's what we needed to see. But I've said all
along that I think Fojoko is going to make this roster,
and I think there was some narrative. There was some
narrative pushing to make sure that that fans know who
(37:48):
he is, that he's a good special teams player because
he's he's he doesn't make a ton of money, but
his I think his salary is one point one seven million,
it's the minimum for it, but guaranteed a million of it.
And when they when you see the Cardinals guarantee a
million plus in salary to player, you can almost always
pencil them in for the final roster.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Correct, And so you know, you look at it. You
and I weren't surprised by his role or his ability.
We were just kind of surprised that nobody thought that
he was going to be on this team or like
that he was a guy that didn't get, you know,
(38:28):
conversations about being on this team. So it was interesting
to me. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
Yeah, And outside of that.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
I want to shut out Yeah, I want to shout
out ke On Bars. I thought he played well.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
So yes, but what that what that's worth when you're
the last guy in the depth chart on the defensive line, right,
not worth a whole lot, right.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
But I feel like guys like Bars are tough because
like this is the only like NFL film they're going
to have, you know, so like it's when I do
play well, I feel like it is cool because.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
I worth mentioning battle to get them to try out
somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Because like you look at MIKEL. Walker, who had a
really nice game, right, he's gonna be on the roster,
So like him dominating the backup backup backups of the Broncos,
isn't It's not impressive? That's kind of what you know.
And again I'm not taking anything away from what Presette
did the same type of thing, right, Like that's the
expectation a guy like Bars, who got signed super late
(39:27):
in the process, played in the UFL, played in the UFL,
hasn't really had any NFL success. To see him have
a decent game, you're like, oh, okay, good job, congrats,
But Now.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
Mike Walker was a freaking starter two and a half
years ago. He was a full time starter for the Falcons,
so right exactly, and so yeah, that's that's that's that'd
be interesting. But outside of that, there wasn't there wasn't
much to be There were a couple of things. It
was nice to see Andre Bicelli, you know, make a
couple of catches to He seems to stick around forever.
(39:57):
Isaiah Weaver had good and bad. On the good side,
there weren't there were no turnovers, no turnovers at all,
so they kind of shored that up. Blake Gillikin, he's
got a monster, he's a he's a great punter. He's
a very good punter. The seventy yards in the air
punt was unreal. And then then the positive from before
(40:18):
the game when when Tato Mackie caught Chad Ryland drill
a seventy two yarder and can you I don't know
if I believe this, but he said that in practice
with a snapper and a holder, he hit from eighty right.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Crazy.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
That's like, have we reached I don't think And you know,
we had cam little that of the of the Jaguars
had a seventy yarder in the first preseason week. That's
like in a game situation, that seems crazy. That seems crazy,
Like remember when when wasn't it wasn't it a seventy
yarder that that Kingsbury had prayed or try at the
(41:02):
end of the half and it just was abysmal? Correct
that was that was abysmal? Anyway, Coming on next on
the Roses here with podcast Best Our Cardinals talk on
the web. Let's let's kind of let's dive into the bad.
What are the things that we didn't like? Who? Who
are we more down on? And end of the like
(41:23):
that's coming to next and Rice he read We're back
on the Rise of hereite podcast the Best ore Cardinal's
Talk on the web to talk about the final segment,
which is the bad. There's a lot of bad obviously,
but who are we down on? And I think I
want to point out number one that the I think
the biggest bad that came out of this was the
knee injury to Hayden Connor. Like Hayden Connor, their sixth
(41:46):
round pick, has been playing center and guard and he
goes he loses here he injures his knee now I
don't know how serious it is, but when Gannon says
he's gonna miss some time, that tells me weeks weeks
and weeks and.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
So.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
And that happened to Christian Jones last week. And so
we're in a situation where two guys who were one
of the two, at least one of the two is
going to be on the roster as depth. Now neither
one is likely to make the roster or they'll have
to do some finagling because NFL teams can before they
(42:23):
make cuts or as they're making cuts. Like the traditional
way where it had to be before is that only
a player is only eligible to return from from IR
if they were on the initial fifty three, so they
had to be on the roster for a day and
so that would But now over the last two years,
the league has said you can designate up to two
(42:45):
players for return and then another eight so you get
a total of ten, so you can the Cardinals might
need to burn both they're designated for returns, like last
year they did that for both Darius Robinson and Christian Jones.
They put them on IR before or as they were
making final cuts, so they didn't have to burn a
(43:05):
spot on the fifty three, and then Elijah Jones cornerback.
They kept him on the roster for a day and
then put him on IR. Then they reassigned Chris Barnes.
Chris Barnes a linebacker, and I'm guessing if I had
to guess that both of those guys are going to
miss significant time, whether it's a good chunk of the
(43:27):
beginning of the season or if it's season ending, my
guess is both will be on IR and that that
kind of changes the changes the roster for the offensive
line and the depth, right because we were counting on
like I feel like that, especially if we think that
Hernanz is going to start the year on pup, which
I believe you will. Six guys are locks, and I
(43:50):
think actually I think eight. I think the the eight
man rotation of the offensive line of set. You've got
your starters, You've got Kevin Beach. I think Nick Leverett
has locked down the guard backup job, and John Gaines
is going to be the backup center. So I think
they got their eight. It's just a matter who's going
to be nine and who's going to be maybe ten.
(44:10):
And I think and I was projecting both Jones and
Connor would be those guys, and those will be likely
inactive all season, but they're not going to start on
the roster, I bet. And that's a bummer because a
guy that because it feels like what we're hearing that
they really kind of like Connor that despite the six
(44:33):
round pick, you know, they like him enough to get
them a lot of work at center and to give
them that depth that they need. And so that that
knocks down some of the changes the roster. And I'm
actually gonna be putting a writing an article either today
or tomorrow about the factor. These are some injuries. These
are injuries that are going to impact the final roster
(44:55):
decisions because you've got three guys on pop, four guys
on PUP. You've got Justin Jones in his knee. We
don't know how serious that is. We've got Christian Jones
and his knees. We've got Hayden Connor's knee. So there's
these injuries will impact how the final fifty three is
put together.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Yeah, and you know, I don't know if you saw
what Gambo said today right that it sounds like Walter
Nolan probably starts the season on the designated to return lists.
Guess what.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
I called it.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
So if that does happen again, that's speculation from Gambo, right,
So we'll we'll we'll label it as such. But with
with that information, you have to look at it and
go okay, well that so who's the other guy? Right?
(45:50):
Is it Christian Jones or is it Hayden Connor or
do they try to, like you said, sneak one through.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Then we and even with with Nolan, they don't have
to burn one on him because he's gonna start on pup.
That doesn't count. That doesn't count because and if and
it would be they don't need to put him on
IR that would be dumb. They don't need to put
him on I R.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Yeah, so you know where do they The way that
it's all setting up is again that this is a
it's a depth thing, right, Like you have to figure
(46:30):
out who I don't want to say matters more, but
who would be more impactful if you can only designate
one at the time, let's say, because like you said,
with will Hernandez looming and Nick Leverett having played well,
(46:56):
like you said, is Hayden Connor as important as as
Christian Jones in the you know scope of all of this.
That's that's how I would look at it that, you know,
because you probably don't want to keep one of Josh
(47:16):
Fryer or Jeremiah Buyers, right and obviously like the Kelvin
Beacham's gonna be on the roster. We know that, and
so it just becomes this like puzzle of how you
get to the to that first fifty three. And like
you said, like there are ways around it, right, like
(47:37):
you Jones could or Connor can make the roster and
then then you put him on I r after, But
I mean I would just you would think that that Jones,
just based on what they have on the roster, would
be the higher priority, right, Like I know Hernandez is
(47:59):
is you know, you and I kind of joked about
it in a text message like physically looking Hernandez does
not look close but looking he's.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
A big guy. He was looking extra large.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
Yeah, like he has not missed many meals or beers.
So so you know you look at that and you go, okay, maybe,
but but you and I have said all along like
he's probably not ready to October anyways, right right, right, So,
and then.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
The Cardinals have a situation here where they have a
lot of and if and I'm gonna I'm gonna nitpick
on this because you know, Gambo's saying that they might
have to start that no one's going to start in
the season. I R does he need to return? That's
a bad way to that. They're not going to do
that because he doesn't need to go on IR unless
they activate him off of PUP. If they active him
(48:51):
off of PUP before the before roster cut downs, which
be foolish.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
They don't.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
They don't have to burn one of those because guys
on PUP are already protected. Guys on pupp are already protected,
and if you keep them on PUP, they're gonna miss
four games, but all of them are eligible to return.
All of them are eligible return. You don't have to burn.
You don't have to burn a guy one of your
IR designations. So that's gonna be really interesting because I'm
all those guys on PUP. Yeah that yeah, lots of stuff,
(49:19):
lots of stuff. Can you continue on?
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Sorry? I no, No, that's no. That's what I was
gonna say, though. It was like, that's what makes the difference,
because I feel like if they for some reason they
do activate him, and they did designate him to return, right,
Like why but that would basically mean, uh, that would
(49:42):
basically mean that you only have, you know, like you said,
one other choice to make, so so who would win
that argument?
Speaker 4 (49:52):
Yeah, I genuinely don't know. I and and we we don't.
Also the other thing we don't just don't know how
severe the knee injuries are. Maybe they were season ending
to begin with. It doesn't even matter.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
Right, well, and that's always the fun thing with Gannon, right, like.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
Like if he's gonna miss the year, you could just
tell us, he could just tell us.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Right, Well, that's my whole like the whole ba lah
Nichols thing.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
And I'm like, I I will be shocked if he
plays this year. The fact that he suffered a neck
injury in week six and still can't practice, then like,
well it is he's careers cooked. Basically his careers cooked.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
Well you know me, I'm like, like, what are we hiding?
Like who cares? Let's just get this, Like that's always
been my philosophy with this stuff. It's like you're not
like there's really literally no nothing gained by doing that, right, Like,
oh gosh, Christian Jones has a torn you know, blah
(50:58):
blah blah, and he's gonna miss the season, Like, oh god,
that surprised the Saints. No, Like, I've just never understood that.
And you know, I've always been with you on this thing,
like just such a just such a hokey thing to do.
But you know, it seems like post COVID, like that
(51:20):
became kind of the standard for them, right like, oh,
we're not going to give out any information. It's like,
who cares.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
Anybody else in terms of play? I think in terms
of players, I thought Clayton Tune has really not he
he has helped, not helped himself. And we lauded him
a year ago. We lauded him a year ago because
from rookie preseason to last present there was a jump.
(51:50):
He's not looked anybody like, he doesn't look any better,
and you just told me before the show he looks
abjectly worse than he did. I'm like, I think he
heard himself. Like what do you think about the the
the linebacker situation with Mike Walker and Owen Papo. People
are saying cut them both. I'm like, I still think.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
I just don't understand why people I don't think I
said the week before, I Thinkpo's probably done right, Like,
but you know, again, I don't get an I think
it's a.
Speaker 3 (52:27):
I think it's a toss up between Walker and Papo
because both do well on special teams.
Speaker 1 (52:31):
Right.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
Walker is a is an establish special teams player. Papo
did really well in special teams for him, but he's
also younger and extremely athletic, and whoever's going to be
in that fourth inside backer spot on the roster, they're
only playing special teams and so it I think it
comes down to that. And but for me, it's a
toss up and Papo is his struggle. It's does it
(52:53):
feel like he struggled more this preseason than he did
all last preseason?
Speaker 1 (52:58):
Yeah, and it's not. It's not shocking in the sense
that they probably have asked him to do more or
put more on him. And so that's you know, that's
that's a common thing that happens as as you know,
preseason goes and it goes back to what we talked
about at the beginning, right like, hey, guys, this is
(53:19):
what this is what happens with pre seasons and things
like that, Like you end up putting more on a
guy and you learn like oh they can't do something,
or they can do something, or you know, and so
for Papo it's been unfortunately like, oh, this is not
(53:42):
what he's good at, which probably shouldn't you know, or
or you know, he's not doing what we expected or
growing like we expected him to, Like this is unfortunately
an instance where he's going to be I don't say
that they're going to move on, but like you know
that we might have to start to look to move on,
right like, because he's not he's not taking the steps
(54:06):
we were hoping that he would and that all you know,
that's all just stuff that that comes with it. And
trust me, we all want to see these guys succeed,
like we have no skin in the game of like
I told you when Papa was gonna suck, like nobody
like we want to see these guys be good. We
(54:28):
want to see them succeed, and when when they don't,
it becomes it sucks because you're always hopeful. And you know,
I talk about all the time, these these day three
picks that are those are the players that really make
learning teams from being good to great, right like when
(54:50):
you can when you start to get players on day
three that are not just impact players, but they become
like lynch pins in your team and what you do
like you're you're a good branchise then and and that's
what we've talked about with Cardinals. They just haven't with
this group yet, they haven't got there. And it's not
(55:12):
unheard of that it hasn't happened yet. I mean we're
talking about year three of a of a basically a
complete rebuild, So like now would be the time to
start seeing dividends pay with with guys like Rabbit and
potentially Cody Simon and and you know, those guys taking
taking the bull by the horns. And it's also in
(55:34):
the same way upsetting is probably not the right word,
but like it gets pretty annoying that some of these
guys just have bad luck with health or or whatever,
right like that that you you know, you've got this
and then all of a sudden, it's like crap, Like
he's hurting. He's hurt now, like h So all of
(55:57):
those things come into it and come into play, and
that's why you have to you know, that's why the
team in and of itself is so vital and the
whole is bigger than the sum of its parts, because
you have to get to that point and they're just
they're still working through it, but you know they should
have played the starters.
Speaker 3 (56:16):
So and with that, we will wrap up this edition
of the Rise of Her podcast mist Our Cardinals Talk
on the Web. We will be back later this week
where we look ahead to the final preseason game. What
we're going to look for maybe I guess what we
can do. Then we will also give our fifty three
man roster projections before the game. I've already got mine
(56:37):
up on the site from earlier this week, but we
will not get on before roster cuts. In fact, will
probably record about the time final rosters are released. Hopefully
they don't make us wait forever otherwise, but if we're
recording at night, it'll definitely be the case. But that'll
wrap this one. We don't know if the Cardinals starters
(56:58):
are going to play in the finale. Don't count on it.
They've never done it. So with that that's seth Cox,
I'm Jessper. We'll be back again soon. Thanks listen, Thanks
for listening. As always, thanks for listening.
Speaker 5 (57:09):
To the latest edition of the Rise Up Sea Red podcast.
Listen to previous episodes and subscribe to the show on
Apple Podcasts, Stitch your Radio, Audio Boom, or many other
podcast platforms so shows are delivered directly to your mobile device.
Please give the show a five star RADY and always
support the sponsors who support the show. We'll be back
(57:30):
soon for the best hour of Cardinals talk on the web.
Rise up Red cea b red Sea Red and of
course Rise up Sea Red.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
Wires. Out there is out
Speaker 2 (58:04):
There is a
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