Locked On Cardinals Q&A Open Forum!

Locked On Cardinals Q&A Open Forum!

Just want to do a little Q&A. I was bored on a Saturday. Let’s hang out. You are Locked On Cardinals, your daily Arizona Cardinals podcast. Part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. What’s up? Um, never really done one of these before, so just kind of see if we get some people in here and uh, you know, get some Q&A going. What’s up, Michael? Thanks for hanging out, dude. Um, so I’m just going to talk and we’re just going to kind of see how this goes. Um, so listen, I’ve kind of had this, you know, breath since the game happened and, uh, there’s a couple positives that you can take out of it. Um, like they play Tennessee next week, which is massive. Like I think what the Cardinals offense needs more than anything is to see the ball go through the hoop. I think that’s it. Like we haven’t really been able to talk about it because of the the cataclysmic bleeptorm that we’ve witnessed in that 5day span where they lost in walk-off fashion twice. Um but you know it’s a long season. Add all the cliches here. blobby blobby blahy blah. I wanted to open up to Q&A. So, drop your questions in the chat. Um I again like this is something new for me. Maybe I’ll start doing this on Saturdays. Um take 15 20 minutes and just not have an agenda and just ask just answer some questions. So, drop your questions in the chat. I know I’m probably not going to get a bunch of people watching um today because I thought about doing this 16 minutes ago. Um, but I did a short that um, you know, just talked about Tennessee. It’s like, listen, if the Cardinals can’t beat Tennessee by 100, uh, we’re going to have conversations. Week one is one thing on the road, New Orleans, things like that. Week two, Carolina they were up 273 and then just kind of forgot that there was a second half of football or you know a quarter and four minutes or a quarter and 10 minutes more after they score the touchdown in the opening drive of the second half. Week three was a bleep storm. Week four was worse even though it looked better. Uh and then now you’re kind of you know folding your hands like okay kind of wish they were playing Tennessee in two days. kind of want this taste out of your mouth as quickly as possible. Um, so I think the best recipe, the best medicine for that is to play the Tennessee Titans at home. And this isn’t going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy where it’s like, oh, you said this is going to be an easy game and now they lose. It’s like, dude, if they can’t beat the Titans, we got a whole other mess to deal with. We got a whole other mess. Um, so I know that it was kind of an emotional roller coaster as I mentioned on Thursday night. Drop some questions if you have them. Um, I’m here for you to answer. Um, and uh, yeah, just drop them and let’s I let’s start getting to this. What we got here? Men before the season mentioned a bit ago that you felt tricked. Are you still feeling that way? Yeah, man. And drop your name, too. Um, because I I just see the I just see the X part. Um, yeah, I do. I’ll get to the other questions in a sec. You know, it’s it’s not so much I said duped. It’s more like why believe if not this year? And for those that have listened for a while and watched for a while, like I didn’t used to be like this. I didn’t used to be like this. I was negative Nancy. 2017, 2018. Oh boy, that was not fun. Um, and then 2019 sprung, you know, rebirth, uh, excitement eternal with with the number one overall pick and Kyler Murray and them coming back week one of his rookie season when they looked terrible week one against the Lions and they were a Tummaine Brock interception drop away from having this miraculous come from behind win in Kyler’s first game ever. Like, you thought that the writing was going to be positive on the wall and we’ve had ridiculous ups and downs since going into this season. They did everything right. They did everything right, at least on defense. And it’s something that it’s just you thought the offense had enough firepower to not look like this. And they do. And that’s the problem. Benny Boy, uh, co-host of, uh, the squad show with me that we do Wednesday in postgame. Is there a breaking point for Petting to get fired this season? What’s the breaking point? Uh, losing to Tennessee would be a breaking point, I think. Um, the problem is just like with Kyler and I’m not I’m just correlating as for a comparison as a parallel. It’s like okay so if not Kyler then who? And it’s not exactly the same because uh it’s more immediate for Drew Pensing. If they were to fire Drew Petting, say they lost and they got blanked by the Packers in week seven going into their bye-week and you have an extra week to ruminate and stew in your own negative juices about what the hell just happened. Who’s going to call the plays? Head coach can’t. Like I know there’s some young upand cominging offensive coaches, but they can’t stop. Like this can’t there can’t be a learning curve mid-season. So this is much more of a devil, you know, situation. And for me that like we talked about this on the squad show and and I talked about a little bit yesterday like the only redeeming quality from the game on Thursday night aside from the defense was first Marv’s catch and hopefully that’s the memory that we have of oh that’s when the demon was born kind of thing. Probably not going to happen. We’re probably going to see ups and downs from Marv for the for a while. Um hopefully not but you know. Um, but the other one was there was some really new play calling that suggested that the first three quarters were finally the wakeup call like you’re going to lose your job, bro. We got to move on here. What are we doing? And then Kyler’s postgame tidbits kind of they could be perceived as indirect digs at the play calling where he said that the offense was seem to be loading for three quarters then they finally did more ran through the wanted to hurry up and things like that. Like it’s always and for those that have watched for a while um Sean I’ll get you in a sec. Um, I always go back to the Greg Dorch slips screen play call against the Rams after they were out of contention last year. He called that exact same play on the opposite side of the field from the first time or you know it might have been on the same side of the field just flipped because they were going the other direction against the Rams. That was the play. Got a nice burst. Got a nice first down. Set it this offseason. Greg Dorch can unlock this offense, which will allow Marv to not be bracketed, Marv to maybe not have to deal with the number one corner every snap, even though he most likely will be when they’re in man. Allow Trey to wiggle a little bit more. Like Greg Dorch is the only person that can do what he does on this team. He’s the only person. Nobody has his skill set. Use it. He dragged defenders multiple one in the first half, one in the second half to almost a first down the one and then a first down in the second one with the slip screen. Like he should get five, six, seven targets a game. If you’re going to throw short, use him because that’s where he eats. He’s 0 to 60 in less than a second. He gets you positive yards. You need to incorporate as many people like that as possible. Sean, do you see Pson making it through the season? Yes. I don’t see a world where they fire him. I was screaming for the mountain tops during the game. If they lose, he’s got to go. I just What are you going to do? Who’s going to call the place? I know that he was a first- time play caller a short three years ago, but what people forget, and not this season, but what people forget the last two years, the Cardinals were absolutely dominant on the ground. They were dominant on the ground. Everybody knew they were going to run the ball and they ran the ball. Even with Josh Dobs at quarterback in 2023, they ran the hell out of the ball. It’s going to be different now with a first time starting running back with James Conor out. We’ll see what Amari Di Marcato and Michael Carter’s role are going to be. Hopefully not inside reads on third and medium. Hopefully we can shelf that. Um, but the Amari Marcato touchdown was great. He’s got a perfect skill set to be a third down scatback. I mean, he’s bigger than a normal one that you have that from with Michael Carter, but Drew like the Green Bay game is really going to be the one because their defense is otherworldly. It’s not as like it’s not as good as week one. I mean, like they look like the best defense in the history of football. They look like 2001 Ravens good, but that’s going to be the real test cuz Seattle’s has a very good defense. So, you want to give Drew Petting a pass because that was the first real defense they played. Whatever. If we’re living in this this fantasy land of nothing’s going to change on offense, which it seems like it’s not, unless it does, then, you know, let’s live in it until Green Bay. If they don’t score a touchdown against Green Bay and the offense looks terrible and it it looks it doesn’t look inventive at all, I just don’t see them having a better option in house. So, this truly would be a devil, you know, situation. But they have been able to run the ball with him. And if the fourth quarter was any sort of any sort of instance of like, you know, flashbulbing from him, maybe you can make it work. I’ll tell you what, there are more plays in the playbook than what they’re running. Use those. Just swap them all out. Let’s see what the other side of the playbook looks like. I’d much rather and the way the interceptions happened, the way the interceptions happened weren’t great. Um, the way the interceptions happened weren’t great. But I love that Kyler stole the ball down the field. Like just throw it down the field. I don’t care if he gets one picked off a game. They’ve got a good defense. You know, they’ve got a good defense. What do you mean? If you’re worried ter would be bad, does it mean Drew is already so bad? like he it’s it’s something that it’s not so much just shifting the play caller and shifting the playbook and shifting tendencies and things like that. There is greatness in this offense. We’ve seen it in spurts. It’s got to be just better than it is. I think that’s really dumb. Obviously, that’s the case. They’ve got to find the special sauce. And I think the emergence of Marv, like say Marv runs through that route and the ball was on target. I mean, he sheds one safety tackle and that’s a touchdown, you know? Like the way it looked was gross. Okay. I like my defense for the other side, even though I was calling for his head midway through the game. Like my defense for the other side is they went up 27-3 against Carolina, then ran the clock out. They had a commanding lead against the Saints and they ran the clock out. The 49ers game, smashmouth defense looked bad. The offense looked bad, so you can’t really defend that. And then this one, this is the best defense they’ve played. So, it’s like, you know, Tennessee is going to be the tail. Like, they’re going to have a wide openen three on Sunday. And if that so much as hits the rim while it’s going in, we’re going to have other questions. But I think that the reset, the the recalibration happens in week five. Do I dislike Kyler? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I think I think Kyler Murray the I don’t want to have this conversation because we won’t have this conversation, but like I’m seeing a lot in Twitter. It’s like Kyler be great on another team. This is a Cardinals problem. Unfortunately, I can’t defend the other side because it’s been a 100% true with Arizona sports teams, not just the Cardinals. It’s this it wouldn’t be like a Paul Goldman situation where they just didn’t pay him like idiots and let him walk. Like that would never be the case. But it’s just like, yeah, you put Kyler on I don’t know what’s a what’s a team that’d be pretty good if they had a good quarterback. I don’t know. I don’t know. I can’t think of one right now. But like, you know, if you put Kyler on a different squad, if you put Kyler on the Browns, I think the Browns are exponentially better. I think that’s pretty obvious. Like, but I I I’m a Kyler guy. Dolphins is an interesting one. Dolphins is an interesting one. Uh yeah, Dolphins is probably the best one. Like I think Kyler would absolutely ball out in Miami. Yeah, I think he’d ball out in Miami. I think that’s really I think that’s a really good call. Um but no, I’m I’m a Kyler guy. I I I don’t think that he’s the best quarterback in the NFL. And I do think that his height definitely hampers his ability to be bo borderline elite. when Kyler and I know this is tired and I know that I say this a lot but this is why I struggle so much when having the conversation about Kyler Murray is when he’s great when he reaches his peak only three four five quarterbacks can get to that level of talent and that’s why I struggle it’s like is it coaching is it reps is it scheme is it um talent level on the offensive side of the ball. Like, he got sacked six times. He got sacked six times on Thursday night. You know, Will Hernandez can’t come back soon enough. I’m starting Kelvin Beam at right tackle. Like, the Jonah Williams experiment is over, man. I I can’t do it. I can’t. But no, I am I am a I’m a Kyler guy because ask your buddies and friends and family members who have been fans of losing organizations like Perpetual in perpetuity. Ask them if they’d rather have Kyler Murray. Would you rather have Kyler Murray than Tua? Would you rather have Kyler Murray than Drake May? Would you rather have Kyler Murray than, you know, Justin Fields? There are 10, 12. Would you rather have Kyler Murray than Michael Penn? I think Atlanta is another one. I think Kyler would pop in Atlanta. I think Kyler would pop in Atlanta. Yeah, Josh Frier did look good. Talking about the offensive line, Josh Ryer did look good uh with Paris out. He was the one that sprung the the long run on the right side um in that game. Uh it’s just frustrating because um bad teams don’t show glimpses of great like some may have a drive here, a drive there with the Cardinal in the fourth quarter is what great teams do. Not not saying they’re a great team because great teams wouldn’t have put all of all of our eyeballs and ear holes through the first three quarters, but that’s the differentiator between a bad team that has no chance of winning ever like the Saints this year. They’re not going to win games. They don’t even though they showed fight against the 49ers, I think, and then they got boat raced by Seattle. But like the Cardinals, the fourth quarter is what great teams do and the first three quarters is what bad teams do. It’s harder to do in the fourth quarter than what they did in the first three because a bad offense is a bad offense. That’s throughout the league. Like there has been so much bad offense during the first three weeks in a game of the of the NFL season. So much bad offense. and Cardinals were a large part of that during a large portion of their first four games. I think we’ve seen what we talked on the squad show about it like we we’ve seen good offense for like four quarters of the season so far. Uh Kyle Stan always have an excuse O line no wide receivers on coaching the Cardinals needs to be on another team. Come on ain’t uh so like Javier so I’ve seen you comment and stuff about this which is great. I appreciate it. I always want to have conversations. I love it. I love it. I love people agree, people who disagree. I love having the conversations. Um, what do you suggest, and I’ll I’ll wait for your response, and I’m not challenging you or calling you out or anything like that. What would you suggest the Cardinals do? And you can’t say get another quarterback. Um, that’s the only answer you can’t give because like for me, you got two options. You draft one. Okay. And if you’re moving off of Kyler, you’re probably going to have a top half of the first round pick because they lost a bunch of games if you’re moving off of him. Or you can sign a free agent. Not fat, not fantastic. Usually that’s not fantastic. We are removed from the days of Philip Rivers and Matt Ryan being backups. Andy Dalton when he was still a like a when he was still a bonafide starting quarterback in the league. Joe Flacco was 100. Like we’re moving away from those type of quarterbacks. And now you’ve got Russell Wilson who’s yuck box. You got Jamus. You want to start Jamus. You playing Jacobe Brassette. Like that’s how I that’s why I struggle. It’s like okay so you can start over. Boo. You can go get a vet. Usually not ideal. Or you can trade for one and give a bunch bunch bunch of uh draft capital, which you know could be fine. But if a quarterback is out there that’s on the trade block, you probably have a better chance of winning with Kyler Murray. Yeah. Like a lot of this is on Kyler. Okay. I’m not I’m not excoriating the rest of the NF the rest of the organization and saying no Kyler’s a a golden child. He’s looked not great. He’s looked not great for large chunks like we’ve seen. I think I was wrong where you know they probably should have brought in a wide receiver. I thought, listen, and it seems so obvious now, of course, but when you have a guy who’s ready to level up in Marvel, you expected him to, and he’s had three out of four or two out of four pretty good games, you know, two out of four good games, has a couple touchdowns. I’m going to do this on Monday. I look through the numbers um lightly, and Darren, if you’re watching, I’m just Don’t Don’t put them in the chat. Don’t do it. Don’t do it because I I’m going to do it on Monday. Um, Kyler Marvin Jr. has he got to 10 touchdowns so much faster than so many really good young wide receivers. It’s kind of another mind screw of like, well, he’s doing the most important thing you’re supposed to do as a football player having the ball with two feet in pay dirt. He’s done it so much more quickly than so many good young wide receivers did to how long it took to get to 10. Okay. So, it’s again another mind screw. But yeah, for sure. Like Kyler’s been efficient EPA wise, you know, analytics-wise, he’s been fine because he hasn’t really turned the ball over. He had that bad throw against Carolina, then these two obviously two days ago, but like man, he’s been he’s been fine. You need him to be great. And the difference between fine to great, that is what makes a B to an A-level quarterback. That’s the big jump. There’s a lot of fine quarterbacks in the NFL. There’s a lot of fine. Most are fine or bad. You’ve got three or four that are elite and you’ve got this wildly large middle class. Like the craziest part about all of this over the last three or four years is first of all, people make the same mistake. National media, majority of it makes the same mistake. A quarterback has one good year. Top five quarterback, top five, all the lists. It was CJ Stra, then it was then it was Jaden Daniels. It’s like, dude, maybe let them get out of their prenatal phase of being an NFL player before crowning anybody. So with that, there’s a bunch of like those two. I would say Jaden is still I don’t know where he is. I don’t know where he is. CJ Stroud. Where would Where would you put CJ Strad now? Right next to Kyler. Maybe a little bit above because he won a playoff game. Oh my god, Marcus. I’m so happy you asked me this. These are red. They’re red. I don’t know why the lighting makes it look orange. They’re red. Okay. I’m working on getting a replicated one. I was thinking about just spray painting these bastards. They’re red. Okay. Like I promise I promise I’m not color blind. I think it’s the lighting and I’m working on it. Okay. I’m working on it. Um so like with quarterbacks, there’s a wild middle class. A wildiz middle class. Aaron Wayne, they are red. I’m looking at it. They’re red. Um yeah, I know. somebody want to come over and pay him? So, like the conversation has shifted dramatically. Like remember when Trevor Lawrence was supposed to be the next Adonis, the next great thing? I probably take Kyler Murray over him. I know he’s big and he can run the ball too and Kyler Murray’s not as big and can run like somebody just said about Jacksonville. Yeah. So, okay. Uh they beat the Chargers when the Chargers were up like three scores. Like let’s reset here. If everybody again, uh thanks for hanging out. This is just a Q&A session. I just wanted to turn it on and chat. Um I appreciate people are joining. I thought about doing this 15 or you know now half an hour ago. So um I uh I might be doing these on Saturdays. We’ll see. But if you have questions about the game, about the season, about the coaching, whatever, just drop them and I’ll get to as many as I can. I’m just going to riff until then. Uh, I think the conversation has shifted the conversation has shifted around quarterbacks as a whole, but people aren’t having the important conversations. The important conversation is one, and this is the most abstract, does your quarterback have to be your best player to win a Super Bowl? He’s going to be your most important, but does he have to be your best player to win a Super Bowl? Jaylen Herz is not the best player on the Eagles. He’s been great. He’s a great leader. I mean, he’s just he’s everything you want a quarterback to be except for they threw the ball the least amount out of any team in the NFL last year and won a Super Bowl. That’s like the outlier of the Celtics winning a championship a couple years ago and they made the most threes. It’s like it’s not supposed to make sense. It’s not supposed to happen, but it happened. And now people are seeing it as the rule instead of the exception to the rule and they’re mirroring things around that with quarterbacks. It’s like there are like how many how how many quarterbacks drop numbers in the chat to this answer to this question. How many quarterbacks in the NFL could legitimately win a Super Bowl? How many quarterbacks could legitimately be the best player on their team and lead that team to winning a Super Bowl? I think it’s five maybe. Five maybe out of 32. I believe the stat that I found that I did was two only two quarterbacks starting quarterbacks under the age of 37 have Super Bowl rings active. Jaylen Herz and Patrick Mahomes and then you got Russ and and Joe Flacco and and Matt Stafford and and Aaron Rogers. Russ. Did I already say Russ? Uh yeah. Yeah. I mean yeah. Burrow Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Stafford. I mean, that’s pretty much it. I mean, hurts like because he’s done it, you have to throw him in there. Um, so six. So, what is that? Yeah, I mean, that’s it’s not uh it’s not great. It’s not the amount. So then the question is, how important is your quarterback being your best player to winning a Super Bowl? It’s kind of an abstract conversation because normally growing up everything is, you know, your best player has to be your quarterback or you can’t win. And and it’s so much so that regardless of age, you can ramble off to bad quarterbacks that won Super Bowls. Trent Dilford, not bad quarterbacks, but not elite quarterbacks. Cred Dofer, Brad Johnson in Tampa Bay, you know, like those are the two that just off the top of your head, it’s like, yep, those two had uh Trent Doer had the best defense maybe we’ve ever seen outside of the 85 Bears with with with that Ravens defense. And Tampa Bay, same kind of thing. Really good defense. So with that, and this isn’t me defending Kyler Murray. This is me talking about the quarterback position as well. I wasn’t even expecting to do this, but I wanted to talk about this for a long time. I just I hosted Cardinal show. So yeah, Payton Payton with Brock Wer, he played he started the Super Bowl, right? That second one where he won. Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. Because his arm turned into gelatinous material and luckily Cam Newton is such a he wouldn’t fall on a fumble. Um, you have more leeway, more of a bandwidth with average to above slightly above average quarterbacks than you ever have or should. And this is that’s where I struggle with the Kyler conversation enough. If you’re What is going to be the upgrade to Kyler Murray? What’s going to be the upgrade? And this isn’t like a you know what’s a million times 1.64397 million like it’s not one of those where it’s like nobody knows that answer but it’s like what’s the answer? How does the Cardinals get better? How do the Cardinals get better? I am long walk short peer status if they draft a rookie quarterback and start him. They can’t. this defense, this this team is too far down the road to do that. It’s too far down the road. Now, financially, of course, that’s actually the best option because they pay him $11 and then you can pay Garrett Williams, you pay Paris Johnson, you pay all the dudes. Like, in theory, it makes sense. There are no like there are no NFL ready quarterbacks in playing college football like real bonafide blue chippers. And if they were, they wouldn’t drop to the Cardinals where the Cardinals would drop to 15 or 16 if this is where we are at the end of the season at 8 and N, which would mean moving off of Kyler. So, I don’t know. Uh, everybody, thanks for hanging out. I think I was about doing about 30 minutes. Um, check out the channel, Locked on Easy Cards. Uh, man. Yeah. Uh, turn 42 tomorrow. It’s crazy. It’s crazy. I started this I started hosting the show when I was a baby comparatively speaking. So, thanks for hanging out for everybody who’s been around for for a while. Every day or um Yep. I’ll talk to you guys on Monday. Then we got the Cardinal Squad show Wednesday night and then Sunday afternoon. Sunday afternoon. If the Cardinals don’t beat Carol uh Tennessee by 1.67 million, we’re gonna be having we’ll have to have the dump button ready, the proverbial dump button ready, even though it’s not radio anymore. Everybody, thanks for hanging out. Um I’ll talk to you on Monday.

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