After the high of the Arizona Cardinals’ Monday night win over the L.A. Chargers came the lightning-quick reality that this will be a short week of preparation for Sunday’s 10 am Arizona body-clock game in Miami against the Dolphins.
Following the game on Monday, head coach Jonathan Gannon emphasized the tempo of practice last week after losing 34-13 to the Packers the previous Sunday.
“It was highly competitive,” Gannon said. “Thursday reminded me of like: I know OTAs not in pads, but an OTA/training camp practice going against each other. It got chippy, honestly. Guys were a touch frustrated, but trying to sharpen their sword. You have to practice the right way, and it was violent and physical. Then Friday was kind of the same and our focus was there on Saturday. The mock game (Sunday) was really good. We had a walk-through this morning because it was a night game. I was in with the offense. They were on point. There were no blunders. Those guys were locked in.
“I knew we were going to play well. I knew it was going to be a good game versus a good team, but I think the main thing is you just have to control your day, and just keep stacking good days. Our behavior is right, but now we have to keep it going. It has to translate because we’re good enough where it can translate. I know that.”
Quarterback Kyler Murray was asked about Gannon’s comments and he said, “It was definitely a competitive practice. It felt like a camp practice. I’m not saying every practice is laid back, but the juices were flowing and guys were flying around. It was a little chippy. It was a lot of competition and competitive, so yeah it was a good week. I think we had a great week and we have to go do it again.”
So it was that Gannon was asked Wednesday after a Monday game how that might translate in a short week and with travel to Miami on Friday.
He said, “Today’s a little different because we’re only 48 hours removed on a shorter week so it’s a little bit different structure today. We’ll get our work done. I feel good about it. Tomorrow and Thursday will be fast.”
Wednesday was a walk-through with players wearing T-shirt jerseys and tennis shoes. Practice Friday will end not long before the team plane takes off for south Florida.
For the other coaches, there is also the challenge of a very compact game-planning process.
Asked how much work was done on the Dolphins the previous week, offensive coordinator Drew Petzing said, “A lot of that for me as a play-caller was actually done at the beginning of last week. Once I get into Charger mode, I can’t go back and forth, but the position coaches get going with this is when I need things done and this is what I need to have done and they did a great job of getting that done on their time during the week.”
One of those assistants is pass game specialist Spencer Whipple. A large part of his job every week is having prep work done on the next team and having it ready when game-planning begins.
How important is Whipple for Petzing?
He said Tuesday, “I could speak hours in terms of his value to me and to our staff and to what we do as an organization. He does an unbelievable job with it. On a short week, it’s gonna be that much more important because he’s one of the first people I sit down with when we put the previous game to bed and it’s for him to say who are we playing, where do they line up, who are their key players, what do they play like?
“Give me the basic structure of the defense. I’m gonna ask a lot of questions of him. He’ll have tape to watch that goes along with what we’re talking about and that switches my mindset that I’ll go, ‘OK, here’s who we are playing against, here’s where we need to go.’ So I can’t say enough about him and the role that he has.”