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The Cardinals have been doing a lot of crowing this year about how strong their leadership is inside the locker room and how galvanized they are as a collective group. They claim it’s one of the best intangibles about their team.
Larry Fitzgerald discussed it just last week and delivered a warning along with it.
“We haven’t faced any true adversity yet,” he said Thursday. “We haven’t gotten down 14 or 17 points or had games where you just come out flat and someone just punches you in the mouth and you get knocked down and you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make play after play after play.
“… When we have a game like that, you’ll find out a lot about the way our team is, the character, the resolve, the leadership. All of those things will be tested when we get into a position like that. It could be this week, you never know.”
Three days later, the Cardinals lost to the Lions, 26-23. They didn’t exactly get clobbered, but losing to a Detroit club that had lost its previous 11 games certainly felt like a kick to the head. Not only didn’t the Cardinals play exceptionally well, continuing their trend of having too many negative plays, but now they have a different kind of adversity on their hands.
Injuries are starting to become a serious concern. They had to put their starting strong safety, Jalen Thomson, on injured reserve after he hurt his ankle in Week 1. Then last week, No.?3 wide receiver Christian Kirk was ruled out of the Detroit game because of a groin issue and it was learned that starting free safety Budda Baker would be having thumb surgery after playing against the Lions with a cast on his right hand.
Baker won’t play this Sunday at the Carolina Panthers and no clear timetable has been set for his return. Meanwhile, the Cardinals don’t have to replace just him, but their other starting safety as well. Thompson’s replacement, Chris Banjo, suffered a hamstring injury against Detroit and his status is also up in the air. Thompson isn’t eligible to be activated off the injured list until after the Carolina game.
If that isn’t enough, don’t forget the fact the Cardinals are in a stretch where they will play three straight games on the road, including a date with the Jets on a tricky surface at MetLife Stadium followed by a Monday night showdown in Dallas against the Cowboys. And when they finally get back to State Farm Stadium, guess who will be there to meet them on Oct. 25?
The Seattle Seahawks.
“It’s not always the same things we struggle with, but I think the consistency is all one in the same,” defensive tackle Corey Peters said. “One thing we always talk about with this team is we have big expectations for ourselves, so our goal is not to just win the game here and there. We’re looking to compete for this division, which I believe is the toughest in football.
“We know what type of team we’re capable of being and we know where we have to go to get that done. Sunday was a step back, but hopefully, it’s one of those situations where you take a step back to take a few forward.”
Improvements need to be made in several places, from Kyler Murray cutting down on his interceptions to the run defense making more of an impact and limiting the penalties all around. Once they clean up those mistakes and more, General Manager Steve Keim said he thinks the Cardinals will be just fine.
“I feel really good about this football team,” Keim said Friday during his weekly radio appearance on Arizona Sports 98.7-FM. “I like the character and the men in our locker room. I’m really excited about where we are.
“When you have a locker room that has players in it like Larry and Budda Baker and Patrick Peterson — and the list goes on — it’s not really that hard because those guys really police the locker room themselves and really create that competition every day, which is, to me, what you need to have success in this league.”
Peterson is in his 10th season with the Cardinals and the cornerback has seen the locker room change in many ways over time. He’s seen things at their best and their worst.
“Man, you know, we’ve been on both ends of the spectrum, especially me,” he said. “I’ve been here one time before when we were struggling to find a way how to win a game in Week 14. Been here before when we were 4-0 and lost eight games after that. Been here before when we was 9-1 up until the bye week, so I’ve seen it all.
“At the end of the day, you have to be able to roll with the punches and also understand that it can turn at any given moment and also, if you have the right guys in the locker room to understand the process. Obviously, you want to win games, you want to put your best foot forward. But once that past game is over, you have to move on and learn how to prepare for the next team.”
Running back Chase Edmonds said the leadership within the locker room is as strong as the talent on the roster and that the Cardinals will be able to prove any would-be skeptics wrong.
“I’m a fan of the NFL and a fan of sports and one thing all great teams do just around sports in general is they don’t lose back to backs,” he said Tuesday. “So, we’ve got to find a way to bounce back, we’ll look at this film and we’ll move on to Carolina.”
When adversity hit and there was a bad vibe around the team last season, Keim and head coach Kliff Kingsbury didn’t waste any time jettisoning a bad apple or two. The Cardinals cut a handful of big-name veterans at the first sign of trouble, so you know they won’t be afraid to do it again if necessary.
“We don’t have any guys who are divas or guys that are going to cause any negative attention to the locker room,” left tackle D.J. Humphries said on Tuesday, adding that Keim and the scouting department should be commended for “bringing in good, quality men.”
The Cardinals named eight team captains this year, but they easily could have named 18.
“When you’ve got a locker room full of good guys that all want to be the best versions of themselves and every week in and week out they’re trying to get better and they’re holding their teammates accountable, it’s just kind of infectious,” Humphries said. “It breeds healthy competition and it breeds a standard in the locker room.”
What they need now is for it to start bringing more wins.
Note
The Cardinals have signed tight end Evan Baylis to the practice squad. Baylis played in five games last season for the Packers and had three tackles on special teams. He entered the league with Houston in 2017 as an undrafted free agent out of Oregon and has spent time on practice squads with the Texans, Colts, Panthers and Packers.
*The Eagles have signed former Cardinals receiver Hakeem Butler off the Panthers’ practice squad and in their formal announcement of the signing, referred to Butler as a tight end.
Have an opinion on the Arizona Cardinals? Reach McManaman at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @azbobbymac. Listen to him live on Fox Sports 910-AM every Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 on Calling All Sports with Roc and Manuch and every Wednesday night from 7-9 on The Freaks with Kenny and Crash.
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