azdad1978
Championship!!!!
With Sunday’s loss to San Francisco, the Cards are sitting at 1-4, clearly not where Head Coach Dennis Green envisioned his team to be heading into the bye week.
Green has broken up the season into different phases and at the end of phase one, the team is far off the mark of playoff contention. A win yesterday would have put the Cards at a 2-3 record, and only one game back from the top of the division with two weeks to prepare for Head Coach Mike Holmgren and the Seattle Seahawks. Instead, the Cardinals are tied for last place in the division.
“We are finishing up this phase very disappointingly because we expected to be a lot better than 1-4. We have a lot of work to do this week.”
Green said he has cautioned his team about being too self-consumed, pointing out that the Niners upsetting the Cards in overtime was really no different than the formerly undefeated Seahawks being upset by the Rams in overtime.
“We played a team who got hot and we didn’t cool them off. That is part of the game. If we start thinking it is because we are Arizona, then we are losing ground. It is not because we are Arizona. It is because we didn’t cool them off.”
“When you get self-consumed, you think your community or your team has a curse on it or something. That is the not the case. It is just football. There are twelve teams with only one win or less in the NFL. We are in there. We don’t like it. You have to live with it until you do something about it, and you do something about it by winning the next time you get on the field.”
Simply put, it is not the same old Cardinals, because Green will not allow it to be so. He’s made no bones about his lack of patience or his disdain for losing, but he’s still intent upon getting things turned around, not next year, or the year after, but now.
“If you only love football when you win, that is not a good deal,” revealed Green. “If you only love football when you are not disappointed, that is not a good deal other. Winning going into the bye was a critical part of us rebuilding this program. That is irritating. Having a lead and closing a team out is a critical part of turning around this program.”
Since the Cards failed in both of those areas, it just means more work to do in the next phase. He said his staff would work late nights this week to take advantage of the bye week.
“I expect us to do a lot this week,” said Green. “We’ve got clear cut things we are going to work on, clear cut things we are going to do as a staff, clear cut things we are going to change and when we emerge, we’ll be ready to go.
“It is not a secret, I haven’t been pleased. I think we’ve been put-putting around like we’ve got some bad spark plugs or something and we are just going to get it out and clean the system out.”
Offensively, the Cards aren’t meeting Green’s lofty goal of being a top-five rated NFL offense. Against New Orleans, the running game came together with Emmitt Smith and Troy Hambrick combining for 206 yards on the ground. Against San Fran, quarterback Josh McCown threw for 231 yards and three touchdowns and the passing attack looked explosive with Larry Fitzgerald making incredible leaping catches and finishing the day with 5 receptions for 95 yards. But when needed the most, the Cards offense netted only 10 yards on its final two fourth-quarter possessions.
“We’ve got a lot of issues that have to be solved,” pointed out Green. “We’ve solved some of them but a lot of them we were putting band-aids on. This bye comes at the right time. I think we’ll solve a lot of our issues, do some surgery, not band-aids and I think we’ll emerge stronger.”
Defensively, the Cards just need to rebound. They still lead the NFL in redzone defense and had gone thirteen quarters without giving up a touchdown before Tim Rattay connected with Eric Johnson on a 6-yard pass with 4:46 remaining in the fourth. They continued adding to their turnover total with two takeaways yesterday, also adding five more sacks to their yearly total of 14, six shy of the total number of sacks they had all of last season.
“We just need to get our confidence back,” said defensive end Bertrand Berry, who played a part in both turnovers on Sunday. “I think yesterday took away a lot of confidence from us. Anytime you lose a game like that, it is tough mentally. We understand we had that game for the most part of it and we let it go at the end so we are just going to have to refine some things, try to find out what we did wrong from a film standpoint, try to correct those mistakes and we should be fine.”
Berry, who has been fighting through a groin injury, left the field for one play with an injury on Sunday.
“Injuries are part of the game, everybody is hurt to a certain extent, everybody has things they are dealing with,” stated Berry. “The groin is no different. It is not something that is going to keep me out of a game or out of the line-up. When I went down yesterday, that was more my knee and I just wanted to make sure everything from a structural standpoint was okay. It was more scary than anything else and I just wanted to make sure it was solid before I went out and tried to do anything else.”
With only two practices on Wednesday and Thursday this week, players like Berry, Duane Starks (shoulder), Emmitt Smith (groin), Josh McCown (hand), James Darling (calf) will have a chance to recover from injuries.
“This bye week will give us a chance to rest, physically and mentally, try to get some of our stamina back and be in a position to be at full strength, rest some guys who are nicked up here and there and just get close to 100% as we can going into Seattle,” said Berry.
Special Teams
Green was pleased with the hustle on kickoff return coverage especially safety Michael Stone’s pursuit to bring down Cedrick Wilson at the 11-yardline early in the second quarter.
But, a punt return for a touchdown in the third quarter and Neil Rackers short kickoff in overtime played a big part in the Niners comeback. Going into the game, Rackers led the NFC with six touchbacks, but didn’t connect cleanly with the ball to start off the overtime period.
“That is the first one he’s missed probably all year,” said Green.
“We had two missed tackles on it,” also said Green in regards to the punt return. “I didn’t think a guy laid a glove on him but in looking at the video, we had two guys who had him and did not hold him. It falls on offense, defense and special teams. When you lose a game like that nobody goes without having contributed to it. Coaches included.”
Anquan Boldin Update….
Green said he still expects Boldin back for the November 7 game against Miami, but a return for the Buffalo game on October 31 is not out of realm of possibility.
“He’s done a great job working extremely hard on rehab. When a player puts the kind of time and effort and dedication in to getting where he’s at, you just don’t hold him back because of a timeframe. If he’s ready to go and he wants to go and he feels like he’s supposed to go, then he’ll go.”
Trade Deadline
With the NFL’s tradeline looming on October 19, Green said today that the team doesn’t have any trades in the work.
http://www.azcardinals.com/news/news_details.html?iid=2290
Green has broken up the season into different phases and at the end of phase one, the team is far off the mark of playoff contention. A win yesterday would have put the Cards at a 2-3 record, and only one game back from the top of the division with two weeks to prepare for Head Coach Mike Holmgren and the Seattle Seahawks. Instead, the Cardinals are tied for last place in the division.
“We are finishing up this phase very disappointingly because we expected to be a lot better than 1-4. We have a lot of work to do this week.”
Green said he has cautioned his team about being too self-consumed, pointing out that the Niners upsetting the Cards in overtime was really no different than the formerly undefeated Seahawks being upset by the Rams in overtime.
“We played a team who got hot and we didn’t cool them off. That is part of the game. If we start thinking it is because we are Arizona, then we are losing ground. It is not because we are Arizona. It is because we didn’t cool them off.”
“When you get self-consumed, you think your community or your team has a curse on it or something. That is the not the case. It is just football. There are twelve teams with only one win or less in the NFL. We are in there. We don’t like it. You have to live with it until you do something about it, and you do something about it by winning the next time you get on the field.”
Simply put, it is not the same old Cardinals, because Green will not allow it to be so. He’s made no bones about his lack of patience or his disdain for losing, but he’s still intent upon getting things turned around, not next year, or the year after, but now.
“If you only love football when you win, that is not a good deal,” revealed Green. “If you only love football when you are not disappointed, that is not a good deal other. Winning going into the bye was a critical part of us rebuilding this program. That is irritating. Having a lead and closing a team out is a critical part of turning around this program.”
Since the Cards failed in both of those areas, it just means more work to do in the next phase. He said his staff would work late nights this week to take advantage of the bye week.
“I expect us to do a lot this week,” said Green. “We’ve got clear cut things we are going to work on, clear cut things we are going to do as a staff, clear cut things we are going to change and when we emerge, we’ll be ready to go.
“It is not a secret, I haven’t been pleased. I think we’ve been put-putting around like we’ve got some bad spark plugs or something and we are just going to get it out and clean the system out.”
Offensively, the Cards aren’t meeting Green’s lofty goal of being a top-five rated NFL offense. Against New Orleans, the running game came together with Emmitt Smith and Troy Hambrick combining for 206 yards on the ground. Against San Fran, quarterback Josh McCown threw for 231 yards and three touchdowns and the passing attack looked explosive with Larry Fitzgerald making incredible leaping catches and finishing the day with 5 receptions for 95 yards. But when needed the most, the Cards offense netted only 10 yards on its final two fourth-quarter possessions.
“We’ve got a lot of issues that have to be solved,” pointed out Green. “We’ve solved some of them but a lot of them we were putting band-aids on. This bye comes at the right time. I think we’ll solve a lot of our issues, do some surgery, not band-aids and I think we’ll emerge stronger.”
Defensively, the Cards just need to rebound. They still lead the NFL in redzone defense and had gone thirteen quarters without giving up a touchdown before Tim Rattay connected with Eric Johnson on a 6-yard pass with 4:46 remaining in the fourth. They continued adding to their turnover total with two takeaways yesterday, also adding five more sacks to their yearly total of 14, six shy of the total number of sacks they had all of last season.
“We just need to get our confidence back,” said defensive end Bertrand Berry, who played a part in both turnovers on Sunday. “I think yesterday took away a lot of confidence from us. Anytime you lose a game like that, it is tough mentally. We understand we had that game for the most part of it and we let it go at the end so we are just going to have to refine some things, try to find out what we did wrong from a film standpoint, try to correct those mistakes and we should be fine.”
Berry, who has been fighting through a groin injury, left the field for one play with an injury on Sunday.
“Injuries are part of the game, everybody is hurt to a certain extent, everybody has things they are dealing with,” stated Berry. “The groin is no different. It is not something that is going to keep me out of a game or out of the line-up. When I went down yesterday, that was more my knee and I just wanted to make sure everything from a structural standpoint was okay. It was more scary than anything else and I just wanted to make sure it was solid before I went out and tried to do anything else.”
With only two practices on Wednesday and Thursday this week, players like Berry, Duane Starks (shoulder), Emmitt Smith (groin), Josh McCown (hand), James Darling (calf) will have a chance to recover from injuries.
“This bye week will give us a chance to rest, physically and mentally, try to get some of our stamina back and be in a position to be at full strength, rest some guys who are nicked up here and there and just get close to 100% as we can going into Seattle,” said Berry.
Special Teams
Green was pleased with the hustle on kickoff return coverage especially safety Michael Stone’s pursuit to bring down Cedrick Wilson at the 11-yardline early in the second quarter.
But, a punt return for a touchdown in the third quarter and Neil Rackers short kickoff in overtime played a big part in the Niners comeback. Going into the game, Rackers led the NFC with six touchbacks, but didn’t connect cleanly with the ball to start off the overtime period.
“That is the first one he’s missed probably all year,” said Green.
“We had two missed tackles on it,” also said Green in regards to the punt return. “I didn’t think a guy laid a glove on him but in looking at the video, we had two guys who had him and did not hold him. It falls on offense, defense and special teams. When you lose a game like that nobody goes without having contributed to it. Coaches included.”
Anquan Boldin Update….
Green said he still expects Boldin back for the November 7 game against Miami, but a return for the Buffalo game on October 31 is not out of realm of possibility.
“He’s done a great job working extremely hard on rehab. When a player puts the kind of time and effort and dedication in to getting where he’s at, you just don’t hold him back because of a timeframe. If he’s ready to go and he wants to go and he feels like he’s supposed to go, then he’ll go.”
Trade Deadline
With the NFL’s tradeline looming on October 19, Green said today that the team doesn’t have any trades in the work.
http://www.azcardinals.com/news/news_details.html?iid=2290
