{"id":91902,"date":"2025-05-31T00:13:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-31T00:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/91902\/"},"modified":"2025-05-31T00:13:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-31T00:13:10","slug":"jalen-thompson-believes-cardinals-will-be-defensive-led","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/91902\/","title":{"rendered":"Jalen Thompson believes Cardinals will be defensive-led"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>The Arizona Cardinals pushed nearly all their chips into the defensive front this offseason with multiple big-name free agent signings, as well as devoting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azcardinals.com\/news\/arizona-cardinals-2025-draft-recap\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">all but one of their draft picks<\/a> to the defensive side of the ball.<\/p>\n<p>Cardinals safety Jalen Thompson believes the identity of the team starts there.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is going to be a defensive-lead team,\u201d Thompson said on Arizona Sports\u2019 Wolf &amp; Luke on Thursday. \u201cWe were in a lot of games last year with the defense, and we could have won more games if we had a little more. This year should be a little different.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have some new guys on the defensive line, and in the DBs room that are all ready to go. They\u2019re intentional, they come to practice, they\u2019re consistent. I think that should be really good for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arizonasports.com\/nfl\/arizona-cardinals\/same-language\/3584590\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">The Cardinals\u2019 biggest additions<\/a> to the defensive front include Josh Sweat, Dalvin Tomlinson and Calais Campbell. And much like Thompson\u2019s underdog mentality, the unit feels poised to prove naysayers wrong behind the creative defensive mind of coordinator Nick Rallis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel like the play calling and him just being a leader as a coach has evolved,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cI feel like he is growing as well. He is a young coach, and we are all growing together. There are going to be opportunities out there for the coaching staff, for defensive players, for the whole team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jalen Thompson and the Cardinals\u2019 high standard at DB<\/p>\n<p>The defensive front wasn\u2019t the only part of the unit upgraded this offseason, with the Cardinals bringing in rookie cornerbacks Will Johnson and Denzel Burke.<\/p>\n<p>For Thompson, it\u2019s all about bringing along the young guys and living up to the high standard that Gannon, who cut his teeth as a defensive backs coach early on in his NFL career, has for the secondary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe feel like we are the best group in the building,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cWe have to hold ourselves to that standard. That is how we are going to win some games this year, by putting the team on our back and going out there and making some plays.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arizonasports.com\/arizona-sports-newsletter-signup\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/AZSportsEmail-300x250-1.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"mobile-signup\"\/>\t&#13;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/AZSportsEmail-830x100-1.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"desktop-signup\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\ufeff The Arizona Cardinals pushed nearly all their chips into the defensive front this offseason with multiple big-name&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2078],"tags":[375,390,1632,2604,1327,7,1631,6,1630],"class_list":{"0":"post-91902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arizona-cardinals","10":"tag-arizona-sports-now-on-98-7-fm","11":"tag-arizonacardinals","12":"tag-cardinals","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-home","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-phoenix-arizona-sports-news-phoenix-breaking-sports-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114599559480697371","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}