Week 5 Q&A

Week 5 Q&A

Week five Q&A, baby. Come on. [Music] You are Locked on Cardinals, your daily Arizona Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Um, I want to do this again. Wait for some people to trickle in. Uh, here’s the thing. Cardinals got to get a win tomorrow. Alex Clancy locked on Cardinals. Um, another impromptu Q&A. Uh, you know, I don’t know if there’s a world where the Arizona Cardinals don’t win this game. Uh, I said somewhat tongue and cheek that uh I put my house on the market if the Cardinals did lose this game and move out of Arizona. While that was hyperbolic, I uh yeah, no, the Cardinals got to get it done. Uh there’s some players that are out, some players that are coming back, and it doesn’t matter who’s there, at what point, at what level of health. The Arizona Cardinal got to get a win tomorrow at home against Tennessee to move to 3-2 and be, you know, still in the thick of it in the NFC West. Please go to the YouTube channel, Sers Lock Arizona Cardinal. Hit that subscribe button, man. You know, it’s uh Will Johnson’s going to be back. Max Melton, I believe, with a hamstring is questionable going to tomorrow. Tarius Robinson’s out. Uh it’s not a great situation for the Cardinals and it’s also one they 100% need to take advantage of win by double digits and go into week six on the road in Indie with a newfound level of confidence I guess uh because last week outside of the fourth quarter they didn’t look like a team that played with much confidence. They didn’t look like a team that played like they believed in what they were doing offensively. There were some interesting words spoken in the press conference postgame. Um kind of indirectly taking slight offense as a whole, whether that was Drew Petting or just in general. And uh it’s something that the Arizona Cardinals must avoid if they want to avoid wild embarrassment by the end of tomorrow. Now listen, I I think the Cardinals are going to win. I think they’re going to win handily. I said it during the the squad show. I said it all week. I think they’re going to win 2710, something like that. The defense is going to show up even though Darius Robinson is gone. Bal Nichols has been activated from the pup list. Will Johnson will be back. We’ll see about what’s going on with Max Melton. Will Johnson will kind of be trial by fire here. Like if Maxelton does end up missing the game tomorrow, Max Melton is deacto CB1 or Will Johnson is deacto CB1. his first five games in the NFL. And with Garrett Williams out and Will Johnson out last week, you know, the secondary didn’t play terribly. The offense was just so bad that the Seahawks just wore this defense down. Like any defense would be worn down if the offense looked so bad that they couldn’t put points on the board. They was It was an absolute embarrassment what we saw during the first three weeks of last week, first three first three quarters of last week’s game. Uh, drop your comments in in the chat. This is kind of what I’m doing here. I’ll get to you 90s in a second. Like, I don’t know. I think I’m going to start doing these on Saturdays. I might start doing them around 12 o’clock. I did it at 12, I believe, last week. Might make it more of a scheduled programming. Uh, I just feel like, you know, we can chat on the one day that we don’t chat throughout the week during the season. Um, what do you what do you think will happen with Nolan? I’m hoping to bring some more production compared to Dary. Yeah, I mean, well, who’s going to say it? It’ll be hard to produce worse. It’ll be hard to produce less than what we’ve seen from Daryus Robinson, unfortunately. So far, it looked like he heard his pec. Usually a pec means out for an extended period of time. I don’t know if that means he’ll end up on IR alongside BJ Ojelari. Um, a media member asked uh Jonathan Gan about Ojari coming back this year. He’s like he doesn’t speak in hypotheticals. So, what are we doing here? It’s like the Cardinals organization, coaching staff, whoever, they just choose to adhere to their own set of rules as pertaining to injuries, reporting, things like that. Of course, you got to go within the the guidelines of the NFL with uh injury reports and things like that, but they don’t tell local media members Jack. They don’t tell local media members Jack. And I don’t know. I don’t know if Michael Bidwell just thinks he’s the coolest person in the room and he can do whatever he wants and that’s just what it’s going to be or if they truly don’t have a grasp on what’s going on and don’t have a timeline for when players will return or if it’s time to put them on IR. The Garrett Williams injury was kind of fascinating to me that he was put on IR and not put on air with with a chance to return and not just saying that he’s out for the season. It looked like he tore his ACL. I mean, he was walking around um the facility after, but like I don’t really understand it. I don’t really understand it. Drop your questions in there. I I know that I kind of I didn’t tell anybody I was doing this. So, um I know people are enjoying their weekends and maybe don’t want to think about the potential of the Cardinals losing a game at home against a team that they uh yeah, definitely shouldn’t be losing to. Um, while people have called this, you know, the generic term that people call it is a get-ri game, I don’t I hate cliches. Uh, I call it more a got to have it game. A get-right game means, you know, you’re almost there. Maybe had a bad loss, but you’re playing pretty well. Other than that, it’s like you just want to erase the game that just previously happened. The Cardinals haven’t looked good offensively outside of like four quarters for the entirety of the season. A got to have a game means you’re supposed to win this game, go dominate, and then go on to Indie. What we’ve seen, interestingly enough, from the Cardinals opponents when they play other teams, the Cardinal opponents who they played this year, when they’ve played other teams, the Saints are frisky. Okay, so they’re I I know that Seattle blew them out. Um, but you know, the Saints played the Bills tough. They played the 49ers pretty tough. So the Cardinals winning only by a touchdown. I was like, “Okay, well, maybe that team’s a little bit better than than than advertised going into the season.” And then you look at Carolina. Carolina blanked Atlanta, I think the week after they played the Cardinals. So, I know that they aren’t a good team and the Cardinals were up 273 and just kind of waited for the clock to run out, which wasn’t great, but it’s like, okay, you know, this isn’t the worst team you’ve ever seen. And then San Francisco just beat the Rams even more um short-handed than when the Cardinals played them. And then Seattle’s a good team. So, you know, it’s it’s been a weird first four weeks. There are more questions than answers. And when you start going like what I said off seasonason is there are a lot of questions going into this season, but not bad ones. It’s like who’s going to who’s going to be CV1? Who’s going to play alongside Garrett Williams? Is it going to be Max Melton? Is Will Johnson going to leap frog? Is Marv going to be nipping at the heels of Trey McBride for the first option in the pass game? Like they were good questions with usually good outcomes irrespective of what outcome that is. And now the questions are is this offense just terrible. Is Drew Pencing not a good OC? Is the offensive line inability to block the run a huge thing or can they can put the ball in Kyler Murray’s hands and have him throw the ball a bit more? And overarchingly what we’ve seen this season is a team that first of all can’t put games away first three weeks first three weeks had the ball under five minutes couple first downs game over victory formation and you saw a team last week that looks so bad they should be relegated to the SEC and then they decide to wake up in the fourth quarter and contrary to popular belief Seattle wasn’t playing prevent defense. That offense was working against the same defense it wasn’t working on the first three quarters. So why the delay? So they got to have in game mentality with this is put together four quarters against a team you’re supposed to dominate and say you go up 273. I’m just saying say you go up 273 early in the third quarter. Go put up a 50 burger. Don’t run the ball and then, you know, play prevent defense and make the game much closer than it ever needed to be. The Cardinals have had all of the lessons necessary so far this season to realize that things need to change pretty much in every situation that they’ve that that’s accured over the first four games, weeks one and two. Put the pedal to the metal. Doesn’t matter what the score is. Keep scoring points. Detroit put up 250 points against Chicago. I think it was week two. Just go keep scoring. Keep proving that the offense works. Those are the reps you need. It’s not in the preseason. Those are the reps you need. The two-minute drill or the the fourminute drill as it were. Like I know that teams script the first 20 plays, 15, 20 plays. Have a script for when you’re up. Have 10 plays. Have 12 plays to where all they’ve got is three timeouts and if the Cardinals can put together a couple first downs, you end the game in victory formation. Why? Why has that been such uh such a weakness for this team? You always see teams every week, oh, okay, you’re up three with three and a half minutes left. The other team has two three timeouts in the two-minute drill. Okay, cool. Just lead a three and a half minute drive. Get three or four first downs and the game’s over. Or go score a touchdown. None of this run on first or none of this pass on first inside handoff for one yard that gets you to third and nine. Then you got to throw again and then you’re punting inside of a minute and the other team has three timeouts in the two-minute drill. You know, this is going to be the offense Richard. What happens if the offense sputters and only wins by three points? May as well be a loss if we’re talking about trust around the organization. I understand what we saw this past Thursday night. I understand that there’s a game every week where it’s like, “Oh my goodness, this game has no business being this close.” And then once every few weeks, you see a very bad team beat a very beat a very good team. I’m not even saying the Cardinals are a good team. I understand that that’s the NFL. I understand that’s how the NFL works. I understand that the Tennessee Titans are made up of grown ass men who are better than.1% of the rest of the world at football. I understand all of that. And if the Cardinals don’t win this game by two scores, we’re going to be having different conversations. We’re going to be having different conversations. Maybe they win, you know, 20-13 when they were up 20 to6 and with a minute left or whatever, they just drive down and score a touchdown. It doesn’t all look the same, but if the Cardinals, I mean, and this Tennessee defense held Houston to six points for the good portion of last week. Houston’s defense is bad because their offensive line is terrible. The got to have it game more than anything is the offense needs to show that they can put up over 20 points in an NFL game in 2025. There’s no excuses. I don’t care who’s at running back. Go score points. And then for the defense, it’s to reinforce that they are a fringe top seven defense in the NFL, regardless of how little help they get from the offense. Regardless of how little help they get from the offense. Because I’ll tell you what, if the Cardinals can only muster like 17 points, they win 177 or 1710 or 1713, Indy’s going to embarrass him. Indy’s going to embarrass him. And I I actually had somebody with a deep cut from one of the reels that I did before they hired Jonathan Gennon and and it reminded me I thought it was a terrible idea to hire Jonathan Ganon and I thought they should have hired Shane Stiken because you need an offensive guy to come in and and lead the way for Kyler Murray. It was just fascinating. I don’t necessarily I’m not saying that I believe that now. Shane Styen’s done a hell of a job in Indie. He’s done a hell of a job in Indie with far less than what Jonathan Ganon has had for the last two years. Just just leaving a pencil in it or a pen in it. What do the Cardinals need to do to win? Drop your comments or drop your questions. I’ll hit them next uh after this word from Square. This episode of week five Q&A is brought to you by Square. Uh your favorite neighborhood sports and spots run on Square. There are certain businesses that make neighborhoods the neighborhood. They’re places that become an extension of your home. Whether it’s the sports bar deciding, you know, your favorite your favorite uh team’s fan base, the spot where the best wings are in town for the game day, or that beloved local chain that’s been rooted for in your community for years. These businesses are what bring people together. When neighborhood businesses thrive, the whole neighborhood thrives. Square is a proud partner of more than 14 or four million neighborhood businesses around the world. You can go to square.com/go/lockton NFL to learn more. But before you do, go support your favorite neighborhood spot. You’ll be happy you did. Square. See you in the neighborhood. Um, okay. This is above all else what we’ve discussed and everything. It’s uh the perfect time for this game to be happening. It’s the perfect time for this game to be happening for a couple reasons. One, the sinister one is if they lose, all hell is going to break loose. Like truly. And and I’m not a sensationalist. I think I was when I started in radio when I was when I was starting out and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. And um even early on in this podcast, you know, when I took over in 2017, I didn’t Podcasts are different, man. It’s different than radio. I was in radio for for 10 years at that point, eight years at that point, doing four-hour long shows, whether it be co-hosting or producing or whatever it may be. Doing 26 minutes on one team every day is a different beast. it takes even more buyin and attention to detail and stuff like that. So, with the me sensationalizing things with Steve Kim and Cliff Kingsbury and stuff like that and even before Cliff Kingsbury, I’ve kind of tapered off on that. It’s kind of leveled out, but I if the Cardinals lose on Sunday, Head’s got to roll. If the Cardinals lose on Sunday, Head’s got to roll. Like, I I don’t think people understand. Well, people probably do. People are smarter than I probably give them credit for. People understand that the offense hasn’t been great. People understand that the Cardinals should be significantly further along offensively than they are now. And people also understand that the defense has been carrying the weight up until this point and for a large portion of last season even though they were undermine. If the Cardinals lose tomorrow, I think Drew Pensing should be out of here. Depending on how they lose, like if it’s 3433 and somehow the defense forgets how to play football, maybe we have a different conversation. But we’ve seen all We’ve seen it all this year. It ain’t going to be the defense. Oh, Richard, do I think uh Drew Ping will be fired if they don’t produce a two touchdown win? No. A win is a win when it comes down to it. Like and I I said yesterday on the show, I said on the squad show on on Wednesday night that you can’t fire Ping this year because who’s going to call the plays? Like I understand they have some up and cominging names who could call plays. You going to change the entire scheme midseason? That sounds awful. I think that every playbook has a bleep it section. You got to tap into the bleep it section more and kind of leave the inside handoffs on second and nine in the graveyard. If I were to be able to puppeteer Drew Pettson for the rest of the year, if I were to be able to control what the offense did, I would have Kyler Murray throw the ball 35 plus times, 30 plus times, and I’m not saying dink and dung throws. I’m I’m saying make this become a passing offense. Utilize Michael Carter and Mari D Marcato in the pass game. Sure, but lean in to what strength this offensive line has and that’s the pass game. And I know Jal Douglas, who’s a coach of uh of the Cardinal squad show, we play in the NFL for seven years. We go back and forth on this because he’s like, “Come on, man. Offensive line would much rather run the run block than pass block.” They ain’t run blocking very well right now. Will Hernandez, we’ll see if he plays. Up until this point, it’s he’s still questionable. I really hope that they just elevate him and he starts over Evan Brown. Uh not Evan Brown, Isaiah Adams that I’ve been stomping the table for. If I had if I was able to puppeteer this offense, more bleep it plays, more Greg Dorch, those that slip screen made me put in all my fields last week which led to a score I believe. You want to see more if and if you want to truly figure out if Kyler Murray’s your dude, him handing the ball off on second and long all the time ain’t going to do it. If this offense is gonna blow up, if this offense is going to fail, make it fantastical. Make it catastrophic. Find out. Find out. This whole this organization forever has played it safe. Always never gave the most money most money the most money. Um unless you’re Larry Fitzgerald. I pay Kyler of course. I mean it’s but it’s just like you pay a quarterback now. Like that’s not like, “Oh, look at what the Cardinals did. Something different than everybody else.” No, it’s what you’re supposed to do. And he put a damn homework clause in there, like an idiot. This organiz I haven’t said this in a while because actually positive things were happening. Michael Bidwell runs the Arizona Cardinal like they’ve won 10 Super Bowls. It’s like, listen guys, we got it. Don’t worry about it. Listen, look at look at the trophies. Look at the trophies, bro. Don’t question us. I know it’s a little off-kilter. I know it’s a little different. Look at look at the trophies. No trophies. So, the perfect time for the Cardinals to play the Tennessee Titans is tomorrow because a couple different things can happen. Could be a pallet cleanser. And again, I am not I know the Tennessee Titans are one of 32 and I know they have 0.1enters uh athletes and football players on their team just like every NFL team does. But if the Cardinals execute a game plan against a team that doesn’t have as much talent, they’re more in transition and they can put up over 20 points on offense and the defense can turn can take the ball away twice or four or five sacks, whatever it is, it would be this inner meto, this pallet cleanser for a team that desperately needs to see the ball go through the hoop. They just need to see it go through. They need a wideopen three. They just need to see it go in. And if they can win convincingly and you see Jacobe Brassette on the field with seven minutes left in the fourth quarter, not because of injury, but because the Cardinals are up so much, that’s exactly what they need to kind of reenter, get back to equilibrium and move forward and go on the road to India and then host Green Bay. I think it’s just like it’s not pressure for them to win. It’s expectation that this will write the ship. And I don’t think that’s out of the realm of any sort of rational thought. I think that’s pretty normal. Um, regarding a quarterback, like here’s the thing. Um, and this is obviously future pacing conversation. See the Cardinal win seven games. They want to move off of Kyler Murray. Okay. So, say that that’s the world that we live in in January of 2026. I don’t see a world where the Cardinals go with a rookie quarterback because this this the conversation expounds to not just quarterback. First of all, if somebody says, “Oh, move on from Kyler Murray. He sucks.” Ask them this and just lead with curiosity. What’s a better option? Well, draft one. Why would that be a better option? Well, you could play him for the future. Is this team built to play for the future or are they built to play now? Well, now it’s like, okay, so what’s another option? Will you trade for one? Okay, what would that look like? Well, you trade for a good quarterback. Well, do you think that the team that he’s quarterbacking for now would want to do that? Well, I don’t know. Okay, so you see where we are now. It’s not as simple as just move off of Kyler Murray. Should they move off Kyler Murray if they win seven games? probably, but it’s not just like, oh, let’s just figure it out. It’s going to be fine. Like, it’s not that simple. So, that’s why I’ve been very adamant about not having those conversations yet because first of all, there are com they’re not even in the auditorium where Hypothetical lives. They’re in the parking lot. Like, there’s so many other things that need to happen before coming to a determin if Kyler Murray’s the dude or not for this specific team. Like you want to see him epically succeed or you don’t want to ever see somebody epically fail, but it’s like you want to see him epically succeed or make it so clear beyond belief that he’s not the guy for them. And there we are months away from that. We are months away from that. So that’s why I kind of put the quarterback questions at bay. If you watch college football this year, pay attention a little bit sooner. Like I’m not saying that people don’t, but pay attention a little bit sooner to college football. And look at how many bad quarterbacks there are with big or oh Manning number one overall. The dude’s terrible. He’s not ready yet. You know, like this may go down historically as one of the worst quarterback classes to come out. So drafting one and the excitement of the unknown doesn’t really exist. Like that’s why if you were to ask me and I and I do struggle with this. If you were to ask me if it’s Ping or if it’s Kyler, and I know this has been just forever the conversation, I know it sounds like an excuse to defend Kyler, but it’s like we see Kyler Murray make great throws when given the opportunity to make that. Of course, he takes part in the blame pie, but even if it’s 6040 OC, that’s an OC problem. Kyler Murray is not perfect. He is short. Okay. He gets balls batted down. He throws fadeaway balls to get the ball there. I know all of these things. I’ve watched him for the last six years in four games. I’ve thought about it a lot. I just don’t know what the answer is. So, I choose not to think about it yet. Going into tomorrow, the objective is clear. Punish. With all due respect to the NFL players who are on the other roster who are going to come out and smell blood because they’re going to try and absolutely embarrass the Cardinals. If the Cardinals win by two scores tomorrow, that will be the inner messo, the pallet cleanser that they need desperately needed before they go play two tough games in Indie and then at home against Green Bay before they’re buy. If the Cardinals after how they’ve played through the first four weeks, if they can get to four and three going into their by-week, that’s a win. So, this will be one win towards that. If they can go to Indie in the early morning slate two weeks from now and get a dub, we’re having different conversations. It’s like the last two weeks didn’t happen. But I can’t help but think as a positive and listen, I’ve never been this positive for 18 months in a row in my life when it comes to this show because I I discuss it as I see it and as I as I as I feel it. Is there a world where we collectively are being harder on how the Cardinals have been playing this year? because they’re that much better than they’ve been. And I the answer is yes. But come down the road with me here. They lost on in walk-off fashion the last two weeks. They the games look completely different. The Cardinal show fight in the fourth quarter last week. They showed no fight in the first three quarters and they played a scrappy 49ers team and the offense didn’t look great. Um they were one stop away from winning that game, but the defense was shot and I don’t know what kind of prevent defense they were playing. Um it was a bad penalty call on that drive. Like Cardinals could definitely be 4-0 right now. Should be three and one. Is it not as grave as it looks? But because the expectations are higher than they’ve ever been with Kyler Murray that we hold more weight in the negative side of it. I don’t know. I don’t know. Oh, let me get one more in here before I get out of here. If we end up with a winning record but no playoff appearance, you think K1 and Drew are still around? I think Kyler Murray is and Drew Petting isn’t. I think that’s the only instance where both of them are split. Like if they win seven games, both are gone. If they make the playoffs, both are back. If they win double digit games and the Cardinals don’t make the playoffs, Ping’s gone. Kyler’s back. I think that’s I think that’s fair. That’s not. So, here’s the thing, Smitty. It’s easy, and listen, I’m not disagreeing with you right out the gate. It’s easy to look at the overwhelm, like since their inception, they’ve been a crapbox organization. It’s just the truth. They won a championship when they were in Chicago before the NFL was a thing. They had a couple good years with BA. They made that Super Bowl when they were looked at as the worst team to ever make the Super Bowl, that magical run. So that’s what, like four years. I know they had some good years in the early 2000s with with Q and and Fitz, but like this has been a bad organization forever. They’ve had some Hall of Fame players come through here, but they’ve been bad forever. So when I’m going to give this stat, okay, this is my go-to stat because it puts things into perspective. Not just for the Arizona Cardinal organization, but as the landscape of teams now as a whole. There are two quarterbacks under the age of 37. Two starting quarterbacks under the age of 37 that have a Super Bowl ring. Patrick Mahomes and Jaylen Herz. And they have Russ Stafford, Aaron Rogers, and Flaco. So say Flaco doesn’t start, but still Flacco started last week. So that’s six. 26 quarterbacks in the NFL right now don’t have a ring. It shows how jaded we’ve become because of Tom Brady and then Patrick Mahomes. Like sometimes good isn’t winning a Super Bowl or nothing. Great isn’t winning a Super Bowl or nothing. The definition ranges widely from organization to organization. While the Arizona Cardinals have been a dysfunctional mess for pretty much their entire existence, that’s not a reason to expect it to happen. Now, their last regime is gone. This is one of the best rosters they’ve had in a long time. So going into Sunday, there’s no question that they need to win by double digit points to completely rewrite the ship go. And I’m not saying it’s going to work moving forward, but to completely like negate the two walk-off losses in five days two weeks ago. This has got to negate that. They’ve had a longer layoff. Everybody’s got to be as healthy as possible. even though Max Milton, you know, tightened his hamstring up yesterday. So, we’ll see if he’s going to play tomorrow. The Arizona Cardinals got to win. They got to win handily and it’s something that will benefit both sides of the ball exponentially, including the coaching staff. Alex Nancy locked on Cardinals. Uh, dude, thanks for hanging out, guys. I think I’m going to start doing 12:00 on Saturdays for 20 to 30 minutes. I don’t know. I’m just kind of riffing here. I don’t really have anything prepared other than, you know, what I’ve talked about the entirety of the week. So, um, yeah, check me out. Uh, let me take back check me out. Um, tomorrow after the game, 15 minutes instant reaction immediately followed by the Cardinal Squad with myself, J Douglas, and Ben Garcia. Remember, without you, there is no me. Enjoy the game and I’ll talk to you tomorrow after

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