Rob Rodriguez came to the Arizona Cardinal last year to coach the outside linebackers.
His coaching career began at Texas-El Paso in 2008, the school where he played college football. After seven seasons, he became the assistant defensive line coach with the Minnesota Vikings under head coach Mike Zimmer.
What followed was two seasons at Arizona State as defensive line coach before joining head coach Jonathan Gannon’s staff in 2023.
The energetic Rodriguez began the Q&A talking about being ready to rock and was told that Gannon talked earlier that morning drinking espresso to help him get going.
That’s where the conversation began with the local media and a large part of the conversation about was Dennis Gardeck, who had three sacks in last Sunday’s win over the Rams.
Q: How you doing?
A: I’m good, ready to rock. It’s Friday.
Q: You’re always ready to rock, right?
A: Yeah, you’re right about that.
Q: Jonathan told us this morning he gets going on an espresso. You have anything like that?
A: I don’t. I wish I had an espresso. That’d be pretty cool. But no, I’m a coffee guy, man. I’m a coffee guy. My wife makes me, like she orders this coffee from back in New England. It’s awesome. They got this fancy stuff. That’s how it is. I married into taste though. That’s what I did.
Q: Why are Friday’s such an exciting day?
A: They’re the best, brother. Because let me tell you something, it’s like the maximum amount of freedom, minimum amount of responsibility. It’s a little bit of free time, just to breathe. And again, you can get ahead on stuff, but honestly, it’s just a moment to take a breath and just be a person. You don’t have to be a coach. You don’t have to be a player. It’s just you earned it. It’s a little bit of a reward at the end of the week. It’s pretty cool.
Q: You got plans?
A: Oh, I got plans. Yeah, because I got a 9-year-old and a 6-year-old, so if it ain’t baseball, it’s flag football. If it’s not that, hockey. They play at the Ice Den. It’s like two miles away. So I’m always at something, man. Do I get personal time? No, it’s all their time.
Q: What goes through your mind when you see Dennis (Gardeck) do what he did last this past week.
A: Oh man, that’s just the best. Honestly, like as a coach, everyone should have someone like Dennis Gardeck sometime in their career because it’s just so much fun to coach him. And what’s really cool is like you coach up as a coach, you always coach up; there’s levels to it, right? There’s arithmetic, there’s algebra and then you get into the calculus. With him, you can coach the calculus, you can set up rushes. He understands the minutia of sets and how to set things up. You watch the way he did; he really did do an extraordinary job, executing the rush plan to a T.
And still setting up his rushes. It’s not that easy to do. I think there’s a nuance to it. Some guys could just; they just rush like crazy. Other guys have to be a little bit smarter. It’s cool that he puts on display his talent and his ability, but also is intelligence. So it’s a whole lot of fun to watch him execute that. I had a joke with him. I told him before the week. I said, “I bet my mortgage that you’re gonna have a great game.” And after the second sack, he comes over and hugs me and says, “Your house is safe.” I said, “Thanks, I need more” and then he got me another one. So that was pretty cool.
Q: Overall, what was your evaluation on four of the five sacks were on third down and they’re all third and manageable? I mean they were, I guess, third-and-mid-range would be the way to explain. What was your reaction to that and how it worked so well?
A: You know, that’s why I love working for JG (Jonathan Gannon) because he gets it, to be honest. You said it’s manageable. So you’ve got to give credit to the back end. If you can get Matthew Stafford to get off his first read, if it’s not one, two, throw with him, you’ve done a heck of a job and again we talk about rush all the time, but some don’t understand how many times that rush wins and the ball’s out. That happens all the time. And so, first of all, they did an unbelievable job. I got to give a lot of credit to (defensive coordinator) Nick (Rallis), go in every week and say, “Hey, here are the weaknesses,” and I think he did a great job of putting into position, not only connecting the back end and helping them to get in good position.
They did an unbelievable job, but we were ready for it too. We were able to win fast, and that’s tough to do in this league. So, especially like you said in those manageable situations, but it all comes down to the players and how they execute it. I thought they just had their hair on fire and they really did do an unbelievable job of earning those sacks and pressures because there were a couple of times we didn’t get sacks, but we were able to put them in a position where it wasn’t the ideal angles, wasn’t the ideal situation for Stafford. I’ve gone against him for a decade now. I know how good he can be when he gets that back foot set. So I was happy that we all put it together.
Q: With Dennis, while you have a relationship with all your players, the story like that, his pedigree, I guess. Do you get a little warm feeling when you a see guy like that?
A: Yeah, I have to be honest with you. As soon as I got the job here, I made calls to everybody that was on the roster and Dennis, I called him. I’d used his film to motivate my players at ASU. He had a game where he had a couple of sacks and I feel bad now saying it, but I was like, “Look at this guy, look at this guy. Look how hard he’s working. He doesn’t have the ideal body type or arm length, but just look how hard he’s playing. He’s got all these principles.” So I called him and I just told him, “Listen, I’m excited to work with you because the one thing I know about you is you play the game the right way” and since I’ve been around him, he does everything the right way. He’s a great teammate. He’s a great mentor. He’s a great guy to coach, right? So he does that well. He’s a great leader. Everything he does, he does it the right way. Is it always gonna work out?
No, but he does it the right way. The relationship I have with him is one of trust because he’s earned it and I think when things go like that, it does give you a warm feeling because you want good things to happen to good people. And Dennis has earned sacks that haven’t come to him. He’s won and the ball’s out. He’s done a lot of selfless work to create for others in what he does. And again, I’m just pleased as punch to watch him. Those games come around every now and again in this league. But it’s like a baseball player with a great swing. Sometimes they go through slumps too, but you don’t want them to lose their swing. You don’t want them to make too many adjustments and lose what makes them great. And it’s just awesome when you see that thing connect and have one of those three home-run games like that. Dennis has rushed that way for a long time. And I’m just glad that everybody got to see what he’s been putting on his plate a long time.
Q: When you look at a guy like Xavier Thomas. Obviously, flashed a little bit in the preseason, had some success. Everybody’s talking about him and you get to the regular season where it’s not quite happening probably the way he was doing it before. How do you manage his mental part of the game and understanding there’s going to be some growth and it’s not going to be like it always was in the preseason?
A: Again, JG and those guys always talk about staying in the present moment and when we talk about guys in our room, it’s kind of like climbing a mountain. You’re always climbing the mountain. Sometimes you slide down the mountain, but you’re never staying in the same spot. So you got to keep your legs moving and drive to improve. Immediately out of the preseason, we made it clear with them. Listen, there’s a difference between sacks in the NFL and preseason sacks in the NFL. But the thing is, you put on display that you can rush at this level and you can handle what we’re giving you. The thing that we can’t do; expectations can crush players. I’m not just talking about young players, but players, and so it’s not about expectations in terms of statistics. It’s about wins and how he does things.
How we do things is important in this program. And I think he’s doing things the right way. So I think you keep it focused on that, on how he attacks his rushes, how he wins his rushes. And then when he doesn’t, “Dude, this is what you did wrong, this is what you need to fix.” I’ve seen growth from him just in these last three weeks that I’m really still very encouraged by him. But again, I’m not going to put a number and a cap on him because, again, he can exceed it, or it can crush him. I don’t want to put that line on top of him. Let’s just let Xavier be Xavier. Let him develop the way he’s developed. And again, let’s let the external things stay there. Let’s just focus on how you’re doing things. And I’m excited about the way he’s going to continue to ascend.
Q: Back to Gardeck for a second. His body isn’t big, so why is it working for him?
A: I think it goes back to what I talked about: The intelligence of the guy. He knows when to use those different things. Guys who have an extended toolbox become jack of all trades, master of nothing so they’re not great at any. I think, “Deck” always understands what he’s great at. And so when he throws these little curveballs in there, he’s first of all played with them in practice. We also give him the freedom to explore his toolbox in practice. Sometimes, it’s ridiculous and we just throw that stuff out. But he does; he stretches the limits because he’s intelligent enough to know how to package those things.
And, it’s going to happen sometimes where as coaches too, what I love about JG and Nick is that we’ve established parameters where we allow players to do that depending on skill set. He can handle it. I wouldn’t want that on XT (Xavier Thomas). I wouldn’t want to do that with XT because he’s going to get away from refining his craft. And I just think like with “Deck,” he can handle it and I think it’s player-by-player basis.
Q: What is the difference between him when you got here and him now? And in terms of the way his production has ticked up.
A: Well, you know, it’s the coach! No, I’m just kidding. The truth of the matter is we adjusted his angle and we adjusted his mentality on how he rushed. There are a lot of things that we changed, that we do differently in our pass-rush technique. So there’s that. But he took to it like he was one of the first guys to take to it. It’s a very natural thing for him. Honestly, it was getting him in the right angle and honestly I think it’s the way we’ve allowed him to do some of the things, like we talked about. We’re not pigeon-holing him. He’s allowed to be there in space and really stretch out his ability and explore the edges of what he can do.
I think Nick does an unbelievable job in game-planning and allowing those guys … he’s not alone but we put him in a good position to be his best. And I think again I come in every week with a plan of where the weaknesses are, but I really don’t know how to put it all together. Nick does an unbelievable job of putting those guys there. And then, honestly, Gardeck’s work ethic. He bought into this right away. He’s not a guy who goes, “Well we used to do it this way. I like the way we did it this way.” He just kind of internalizes that and really adjusts to how you coach him. This is an extremely intelligent coachable guy.
Q: What is he great at?
A: Here’s the thing. Let me tell you what Dennis Gardeck is not great at: Being tall and having long arms. End of list, OK? The guy’s really good at everything else. And again, I just think he’s an outstanding player that wasn’t given an ideal body and I think that makes me love him even more because the guy’s all heart, man.
Q: What did you change with his angle?
A: What happens with a lot of guys is when they attack, they want to go straight to a line. The game of football, if I draw a straight line like this and a straight line like that (makes a right angle); people draw lines like that all the time. That’s bad football. The game of football is played in all the angles in between that right angle. And you teach them to get on that right angle and stress these linemen. If you ever watch linemen work, they work the targets in front of them between their armpits and between their legs and they do such a good job of keeping you there. You never see O-linemen working with their hands outside the frame. We want to get them there and make them turn and stress them. So getting those angles at the contact point, they’re slightly moving, they’re slightly off balance.
That creates situations where they bob their heads and we can work back inside. They stay inside, you can work outside. And then the next thing that we worked with all that stuff is in those angles. We stop saying, “Hey, when you put your hand on the ground, I’m going to use a speed rush on this.” We’re going to rush the angle and we’re going to basically attack what we see. So he’s really, really good at being fluid and not having … just having to move in mind, going out there saying I’m going to work this move. And then react. He’s really attacking and reacting at all times and he took to it right away. Some guys struggle with that.
So you got to give them one move, but we want to evolve to what he’s doing now is how he’s hitting guys. We want to evolve to that I’m just attacking what I see. It’s a lot more fluid and then that’s why offensive line guys sometimes say, “How do you guys guess right so much?” We don’t guess right. We’re really attacking what we see. And so we’re attacking these angles and whatever your hands and whatever the picture is, that’s what we attack. That’s what he’s gotten good at.
Q: What is the challenge the Lions tackles present?
A: Oh my God, they’re just so athletic on a one-to-one. You put on the one-to-one tape, I almost wanted to take a nap afterwards. I was depressed. These guys are so good one-on-one. I know (Lions line coach) Hank Fraley; we were in Minnesota together. Well-coached, but they’re so athletic. So because of that, even when you catch them in their weakness, they have the ability to recover. And again, the quarterback (Jared Goff) does a good job sliding in the pocket and assisting them, but honestly, these tackles are a challenge just because they’re athletic and when they’re athletic, they don’t get off balance, it’s harder to get them to lean. They can anchor, they can run. They switch up their sets. This is an outstanding offensive line, as good as we’re going to see.
Q: What do you like about working with Mack Wilson off the edge?
A: I love that. Mac is great because I don’t get a ton of time with him, but I’ll tell you what, every time I do, that dude’s lit up. You can tell he feeds into the information and it’s not something that he gets to see a lot. So, it’s one of the things where you want to coach people who want to be coached. Mack wants to be coached in this field. No doubt, and I thought he’s got a great skill set. Again as coaches sometimes, you know JG’s always talking about team before me. That’s hard when it comes to Mack with me because I want to grab that dude, and say, ‘Let’s go work’ or just have a lot of fun working with Mack. He’s got a great skill set and he’s just a tremendous athlete. He plays faster on Sundays than he does any day of the week. So probably plays fast on Mondays too, but he takes everything you get and he makes it faster and processes it great. So he’s a lot of fun to work with.
Q: With all the factors you talked about, how has Zaven (Collins) been this year after making the transition to the edge last year.
A: I think Zaven is light years better than he was last year. Even more so than that, I really do love and appreciate him. I’m really proud of him just because it’s not been easy, man. It’s been tough and he has just had this steady work ethic throughout. He has had steady growth and like I talked about with XT, you don’t want to crush him with expectations because then he’s going to press. A desperate pass rusher is the worst thing you can have. Zaven provides so much to this team because of his versatility and all that he can do. But as a pass rusher, he’s had a long way to go and he’s just made steady chunks. He should have two credited sacks right now. He’s earned the right to have more and done an unbelievable job.
And what I love is, he’s starting to think like a pass rusher. The questions that I get, the way he’s seeing the sets. I’m getting this, ‘Coach, I felt this.’ I felt that he’s starting to see the game through an edge’s eyes. And that’s a really positive thing because honestly, I can put them in position, I can teach them the technique, but they gotta feel it. We go back to the best pass rushers that I’ve been around; eventually it clicks and then the light turns on and it’s a beautiful thing to be around and Zaven is just steadily making progress up that mountain. He’s going to see that horizon one of these days.
He’s just got to keep plugging away because I love the progress that he’s made. He’s got so much more to ascend and he’s got more in the tank. But again, just the more he continues to explore; feel it. I think one day he’s just going to know who he is, and then it’s going to be really special because that guy can really do a lot of great stuff. He’s growing in confidence as well and being aggressive at the contact point. You know, he was back in the stack-backer where you can let things process Can’t do that when you’re an edge. It happens like that (snaps finger). And when you get to the contact point, it’s you and me in the phone booth. So, we got to start punching right now and so eliminate that timing process for him and getting him to be the aggressor. He’s getting better and better at that every day.
Q: You haven’t been with Julian (Okwara) very long, but what has he shown you in that time?
A: He’s highly intelligent. Has really long arms, good athleticism for a big body. I love him in the run game. I think he has a good skill set in the pass rush that when we talk about our technique and getting them in the right angles, with the right posture at the contact point, I think he’s going to improve as a pass-rusher even though he’s already shown that he can rush in this league. But I really like what he provides, not just as a player, but as a person. He’s a smart guy with a high character.
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