Patrick Peterson: The Arizona Cardinals’ season has unraveled. What’s next?

Patrick Peterson is joining us right now on the Arizona Sports Line to talk some football here on this uh fine middle of November day. What’s going on, Patrick? How you guys doing today, man? We’re doing good, Pat. How are you, buddy? There he is. First time on video. I’m doing great. Uh Patrick, let’s let’s just start big picture with the Cardinals. Wolf and I were just talking about this. You start two and 0. You have five kind of heartbreaking last second losses. You win a game coming out of the buy, but now you’ve lost two pretty lopsided games. What in your mind is the key to making sure the season doesn’t unravel at this point? I mean, honestly, the season have unraveled, you know, for the most part, you know, not really having any playoff implications or anything to fight for. It’s basically going to go back to what I talked about, you know, last time we had an opportunity to have our uh conversation about the guys who have an opportunity to go out there and play, how much do the game mean to them, you know, so if it’s, you know, trying to get another contract or, you know, trying to put good film out there for another team, it’s very important and vital that you go out there and still put forth your best effort. You know what I mean? just because again there’s 31 other teams that’s looking to improve their team, you know what I mean? And when you play your heart out towards, you know, the the tail end of the season when you have nothing to play for, that just shows heart, that shows character, and that’s what a lot of organization want to build their team around. So Pat P, when you think of the 49ers game, where does your mind go? What what are what are the first thoughts that you have about that game and what you saw? Um it was almost similar to the Seattle Seahawks game. You know, obviously the first kickoff return goes for 99 yards. Um and then you had a couple turnovers to follow up with that. Um it’s just it’s just tough for the Cardinals to put themselves in a in a hole and expect to, you know, dig themselves out. Yeah, we know Jacob Verset had a a record break a record-breaking day with 47 completions, but if you was never in that hole, we we don’t know if we would ever ever would have gotten that day. You know what I mean? So, the Cardinals have to do a better job of stop shooting themselves in the foot early on in the ball game. and and that’s coming with big time special team plays from the opposing team and the opposing team defense taking the ball away and turning them into points. Talking to Patrick Peterson. Patrick, when you see a guy who has been I don’t want to say quiet, but I mean he’s usually putting up like 30 maybe 40 yards a game. There were a lot of games earlier this year where he had like 15. And Michael Wilson and then he goes out and has 15 catches for 185 yards. What does that tell you about what he’s potentially capable of? I mean, he’s a playmaker. He’s a guy that can do it. You know, now he has to obviously stay healthy enough to stay on the field and get into the rotation so he can continue to be one of those trustworthy guys and be accountable and dependable on when his number is called, you know. But, you know, he’s shown that, you know, a number of times last year having a a couple big games, you know. So, we know that, you know, well, not we, they know that it’s there, you know, he he has to just do a better job of his availability and and and just being more accountable and to the offense, you know, when they need him. So, you know, the athletic ability is there, the the the the route running ability is there, the separation ability is there. Now, we uh the offense and the offensive coordinator, he has to continue just to build that trust with him. You know, Pepe, I I have my own thoughts on this, but I really am interested in getting your thoughts on this. Um, getting down early in games. How, if you were inside that locker room, how would you go about communicating how important it is that you are ready to start the game? It just seems like, especially these last couple of games, they just haven’t been prepared to start the game. Have you ever been in a situation like that yourself? And how did you handle it? Well, you know, Wolf, playing in 200 and something odd games in my career, you know, I had to be in a couple of those, right? You know, so, right, at the at the end of the day, man, you have to the guys have to understand you can’t put yourself in, you know, behind, especially when you’re playing a quality opponent. It’s almost I won’t necessarily say it’s not impossible to make a comeback, but you want to put yourself in the best position possible to win the ball game and and play more stress-free type of football. And you know, those first 15 first 15 plays on both sides of the ball are very very important because that’s going to give the that’s going to pretty much be the tail take of what you’re going to pretty much get throughout that ball game. So how you react and handle those first 15 is it if e either it’s successful or a failure. Now you go into overtime I mean halftime you know and regroup and put together another game plan because eventually your first game plan wasn’t good enough for you know for what you put together for this team. So now you have to be able to regroup and and make those halftime adjustments to where when you come back on the football field that you’re not seeing these same, you know, explosive plays and big time plays happening. So the first 15 plays are definitely are very very important. But then as a leader, you have to be able to talk to the guys and get get the guys back, you know, honed in and understand that now those first 30 minutes are out of the window. We can’t do nothing about that. Now, these next 30 minutes, we have to play our best football in order to put ourselves in position to win the ball game. Yes, that may be hard, but we put ourselves here. So, let’s see what we are really made of to see if we can get ourselves out of this hole that we that we put ourselves in. Pat, would you be in favor of flashing the one? Would you be in favor of going out before the game? So, flash the one. Here we go. Get your intensity level right? I mean, would you be in favor of that? 100%. And you know, Kas is one of those guys is I can I can see being a a clear candidate for that. And I know that he understands, you know, what it means, especially this this part of the season. Um when you don’t have nothing to play for, um you know, he’s been in the league 17 years. So he can be a very very valuable piece for these young guys moving forward although that the season is not paying out what they uh want it to be because there are still stats that you’re playing for. There are still accolades that you want to get individually and as a defense and offense collectively. So there’s still something to play for although that you’re not you know in a position to get yourselves in the playoffs. Talking to Patrick Peterson. Patrick, when you see a game like Jacobe Brassette had, and to your point, if they weren’t so far behind early, he wouldn’t have had to put up those numbers, but I mean, this guy was your backup and he comes in and he’s completing 47 passes and setting a record and throwing for all these yards and completing 83% of his passes. It’s not ideal circumstances, but how do they translate that ability into wins now? Because they’re still only one and four when he started. Yeah, that’s that’s the that’s the really big, you know, eyeopening part about all of Jacob’s success that he he is having um that he is still only one and four in his, you know, five starts that he had an opportunity to start in. So, I believe what it’s going to come down to is obviously starting off fast. They have to do a better job of starting the game off fast and they’ve done that in the Dallas football uh when they played Dallas on Monday Night Football. So, they have to find a way to get back to that. starting off the football game fast, not allowing opposing offenses or opposing special teams big plays because we’ve seen when they start fast and they get off the field on third downs and minimize uh special team plays, although they did still give up a splash play um in that Dallas game, but if they minimize those things and and get off to a better start, they put themselves in a better position. And then that’s when it comes down to finishing the ball game, you know what I mean? So, the Cardinals are in a in a weird situation right now because the first half of the season, they did a good job of starting fast. Now, in the second half of the season, they’re not they’re not doing a good job of starting fast and pretty much putting up garbage time stats. But, you know, they have to do a better job of putting it all together now. And that’s what coach Ganon and you know, the Arizona Cardinals are going to have to do some soularching over these next seven weeks. Patrick, we appreciate this as always, man. Thank you. Thank you, buddy. All right, guys. Okay, take care. All right, you too. That’s Patrick Peterson joining us right there on the Arizona Sports Line. And if you were watching on YouTube uh YouTube, you saw Patrick Peterson joining us. Yeah, sorry about that. I think I scared you with a bad I forgot how to talk. Thanks for watching Wolf and Luke. 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Patrick Peterson says the Arizona Cardinals’ season has unraveled. What the team legend wants to see from the squad the rest of the season.

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