Can the Arizona Cardinals turns things around following the bye week? A.Q. Shipley weighs in

Can the Arizona Cardinals turns things around following the bye week? A.Q. Shipley weighs in

Yeah, Cardinals had their by week in week eight. They’re back at it a week from tonight against the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football with a two and five record. Is this salvageable? We will find out. But here to talk about uh Cardinals football with us, their color commentator on the radio, uh the Cardinals Radio Network, former Cardinal, the center of the Cardinals, AQ Shipley joins us via video this morning. AQ, good morning, man. How are you? Good morning, boys. How are we doing? Good. uh with the by-week and we know uh you got other duties that you’re in charge of. How did you spend your NFL Sunday? What uh what caught your interest on on Sunday? It was nice to be able to sit back and watch the whole gamut of games. I mean, it was it was good to see. And there were some good games yesterday. Some teams kind of It’s interesting, right? The parody of this league because everybody’s wondering, can the Cardinals fix it, right? And you can sit there and look at the Philadelphia Eagles. There’s a prime example. Hey, they haven’t had a run game all year. What did they do yesterday? 260 yards rushing. So, you can fix things in this league. So, it was good to see things like that. Buffalo Bills have been trending downward and then boom, they explode again, right? So, teams are able to figure things out, especially after a by-week. Would would activating the running game be number one on your list for things for the Cardinals to have fixed going into this week? Yeah, 10,000%. I think the biggest thing that they need to do is figure out what worked last year, get back to doing that. And I know there’s some things that have been done differently on defense this year amongst the league that have kept rushing yards down a little bit, but we still got to find a way to get to that 100 yard threshold. We have to find a way to get the running game going because that will open everything else up. If you look at the Indianapolis Colts, Jonathan Taylor, maybe the last couple years hasn’t been the Jonathan Jonathan Taylor we’re seeing now. All of a sudden, he’s back to Jonathan Taylor. And guess what else? It makes Daniel Jones job a heck of a lot easier. AQ Shipley, our weekly guest talking Cardinals football, NFL football with us here on Bickley and Marada Mornings. Obviously, there’s also the the burning question at the quarterback position. AQ, whether or not it’s a question I think will be addressed early this week by Jonathan Ganon if Kyler Murray is healthy. And we were talking about it earlier and I made the point, hey, Jacobe Brassette could have made this a heck of a lot easier had they found ways to win games. I’m not pinning those losses on him, but I don’t think you can stick with a backup quarterback after two straight losses if your starter is healthy. That being said, how much more pressure is on Kyler Murray to figure this thing out for these last 10 games for the rest of his career basically? Yeah, you nailed it right there. I mean, I think at the end of the day, I think when you look at him and you look at what he’s been able to do, he’s obviously shown in in terms of Kyler, he has shown that he is a good quarterback. He’s shown flashes of brilliance and greatness and all of these things. And the one thing that continuously lacks is consistency, right? And it’s consistency in play. It’s consistency in winning games. It’s consistency in getting to the playoffs and getting over the hump, right? And so I think that is what everyone expected going into year seven this year, especially after they improved the defense and did some other things and they kept their offense together and all of the things that were said going into the season. And now now you’re sitting at two and five and it’s it’s it’s it’s an uphill battle at this point, right? And so I think the biggest thing that he’s going to need to do is come out and show, hey, I can run this offense as efficiently. I can take care of the football. I can push the ball down the field. I can do a lot of the things that we’ve seen happen the last two weeks, whether or not that was play calling that maybe adjusted to Jacobe strength, whatever it may be. But at the end of the day, we’ve seen what the offense has been capable of doing. And so he needs to come out and show that same thing. Do you think Kyler could could get up under center more and more to the point, sell the play action the way Jacobe does? Cuz Jacobe really does sell the play action. He didn’t just run it, he sells it. And that’s a trait that you’ve got to you’ve got to embrace and you’ve got to have uh experience doing it. And I’m not sure Kyler ever had to play that way. Do you think it’s imperative that that that becomes part of his game? So for me, I’m I’m an old school type of player. I come from an old school world of league. I came into the league in 2009 as a player and for me the game was different then right like the game was completely different then. Quarterbacks in college were under center. Now you take a look for instance uh Atlanta Michael Penn Jr. never took a snap under center. So their way of getting to under center is running the pistol. You notice they’re in the gun and then Bejon’s behind him, right? that’s getting to under snaps under center or comfortable taking snaps under center. So, it’s a different it’s a different world with some of the quarterbacks that have come in recently where they’ve spent their entire life in shotgun. And so, I would think I’m a big believer in under center. I think under center sells everything when you look at the teams that really have great play action games in Tampa, in Seattle, um in LA, right? like they get under center and they sell the run game underneath, but then off the run game underneath you have all the naked boots and the play actions and the roll outs off of that. It’s a lot harder to sell when you’re in the gun. No doubt. I’m fascinated by this topic, AQ, just from the big picture because people will say, “Is college football doing a disservice by having quarterbacks play that style?” And then I always come back to, well, it’s not college football or an individual coach or program’s responsibility to really worry about a quarterback’s development. They have to win games to keep their jobs, but we’re talking about the spread offense and a lot of these quarterbacks being exclusively shotgun for the last 20 years. Do you think it’s ever going to shift back? Do you think we’ll see more pro style offenses ever return to college football? So, this is this is one of my favorite topics to talk about because I think in the NFL it’s cyclical, right? It constantly moves, right? the run game goes and then five years later now it’s air raid and it’s all pass game and then it’s back to run game and go back to defensive lineman when I came into the league it was the Vince Wilforks of the world the Casey Hampton’s the monsters and then Aaron Donald and JJ Watt came around and then it went to speed and then everybody started smashmouth football again and then we get back to the big boys right so it’s constantly cyclical at the NFL level I don’t know if it will ever get back that way in college football and I agree with you 1000% it’s done a disservice to the NFL product and what has been able to get developed for the next level, but at the end of the day, their job security remains, we have to win games at this level. And so, how is the best way to be able to do that? Well, I I want to put the most athletic product on the field in terms of play actions, RPOS’s, putting everybody in a bad situation on defense because the defenses aren’t the level of what they are in the NFL. And so it’s a constant struggle battle for me because my whole world is the NFL at this point and I want that product to be the best, but we’re not putting the quarterbacks in the best situation to now come into the league prepared as they once were. And and I say this all the time because every other student in college, you’re being trained for your profession. That’s the entire point. And if you’re a football player, they don’t even play the same game of basketball in college. So, you are taking the two um most high-profile sports and high-profile athletes and you are not training them to be professionals. It’s insanity. That’s a great That’s a great point. It really is. And I think the two most, in my opinion, the two most affected positions of the college game to the pro game are offensive linemen and quarterbacks. I think offensive linemen are the same thing. They’re never in a three-point stance. None of them are always in a two-point stance. They’re not asked to do all the things that they’re going to be asked to do at the next level in terms of recognizing this Mike Sam blitz or this will free safety blitz or all of these things that make what offensive linemen once were in terms of smart, right? We have to be able to recognize and see things and be able to fix problems and diagnose things and do all of these different things. Oh, and by the way, we got to get in a three-point stance and run a tush push or a short yardage play and have an attitude play on the goal line. Well, I’ve never been asked to do that. I’ve never had to snap the ball as a center to a quarterback under center and now I get drafted to LA and now all of a sudden I got to change the way I hold the ball. I got I got to change the way I snap the right. There’s all these different intangibles that go into this. I wanted to ask you about one more thing, AQ, while we got you and we appreciate your time as always. Um the the Camp Scaboo injury yesterday, ugly sight. Nobody wants to see that on the field. There was no penalty called on Zack Bond. There’s this debate on the hip drop tackle. the language and the rule is a little bit murky and open for interpretation. I’ve heard people who have spent 15 years as players in the NFL say, “I don’t know what a hip drop tackle is at this point.” Uh, obviously throwing a flag’s not going to bring Cam Scataboo back. But do you expect the NFL to levy a hefty fine on Zack Bond to try to curb this? Yeah, 100%. Because listen, like at the end of the day, I know the way the NFL works and everything’s optics. Everything’s optics, right? Like you’re 100% right. you are 100% right with everything is murky, but that’s that’s what every rule is. Like the cut block rule is murky. Every rule is subjective, right? And so every penalty is subjective. They it’s this crew calls it differently than this crew. And but they they set everything up where there’s one guy that can make the ultimate final decision. And if it optically affects the way that people are viewing the NFL, then there’s going to be some type of consequence. That’s just that’s just the way this league works. Right, wrong, or indifferent, right? And so I think when you look at it, there’s going to be some type of some type of penalty that’s dropped down. AQ, great stuff. We’ll talk to you after the Cowboys game, man. Always, boys. Take care. Thanks. AQ Shipley joins us weekly here on Bickley and Marada Mornings to break it down with no Cardinals game. A little more of a leaguewide focus. That’s fine. It’s cool. That was good stuff. That’s great stuff. Enjoyed that conversation. Thanks for watching Bickley and Marada. Click to see the latest Bley Blast and hit the button in the middle to subscribe to Arizona Sports.

In his weekly appearance with Bickley & Marotta, Cardinals’ radio analyst AQ Shipley talked about what he saw across the league during Arizona’s bye week, discussed the team’s chances of turning things around and weighed in on the continued debate on whether Kyler Murray or Jacoby Brissett should start vs. the Dallas Cowboys next Monday.

Cam Skattebo carted off the field after suffering gruesome right ankle injury: https://arizonasports.com/ncaa/arizona-state-football/skattebo-4/3600232/

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