The Arizona Cardinals get their bye week at a good time. They are coming off their most thrilling win of the season and have a number of injured players who could use the time off. However, the time off can’t do what happened last year.
In 2019, coming out of the bye, they were embarrassed by the Los Angeles Rams and looked as bad as they had all season.
Last year, head coach Kliff Kingsbury gave them a light week of practice and even an extra day off. After the loss and poor performance a year ago, Kingsbury joked he would do the exact opposite of what he did since it was a disaster.
Things have changed this year as players can’t really travel. They still must test daily for COVID-19 so they still will be coming into the facility.
Kingsbury believes the problem last year was focus and he addressed it with the team. He didn’t have any drastic different plans.
“I think just addressing it and understanding last year coming off the bye was the one game since I’ve been here that I felt we were just non-competitive,” he told reporters this week. “I thought we had a bad week of practice. It rolled right into Thanksgiving. It was kind of a combination of things, and we were awful against the Rams. They kind of embarrassed us, so just addressing it, and making sure guys understand we’ve got to stay more locked in this year. We have to individually take it upon ourselves to keep the focus and stay dialed in and stay on this energy that we’re on right now.”
Ever since their loss to the Carolina Panthers, the team has remained focused. And after their win over the Seahawks, they have the belief they can beat anyone.
Assuming they maintain that focus and play the way they have, they could and should be looking at a 7-2 record when they travel to Seattle to play the Seahawks on Thursday night in Week 11.
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