The Rise Up, See Red podcast
Talking Kyler Murray, Drew Petzing with Howard Balzer
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Get a $0 delivery fee for your first three orders, while supplies last. Minimum $10 per order, additional terms apply. This is the Rise Up Sea Red Podcast, all about the Arizona Cardinals and the NFL, featuring insider and outsider perspectives. Enjoy the best hour of Cardinals Talk on the web. Now, here are your hosts, Jess Root and Seth Cox. Hello, Arizona Cardinals fans, and welcome to the latest edition of the Rise Up Sea Red Podcast, the best hour of Cardinals Talk on the web. I'm your host, Jess Root from CardsWire.com, the USA Today NFL Wire site that covers, of course, your Arizona Cardinals were episode 547. And with me, in this edition of the show is fellow CardsWire reporter and writer Howard Balzer, also from the NFL Wire, CardsWire, he's been doing work with me for the past few months, and has been at mini camp, at OTAs, at some of the recent press availabilities. Howard, glad to have you on as we hit a tough part of the offseason in terms of content, but it's been kind of nice because the Cardinals have, you know, something new that in these off weeks since mini camp, and with the exception of next week, which is a holiday week, they bring in a coach, a couple of coaches, a couple of players to fill in the gaps, which I greatly appreciate, I'm sure you do too. No doubt, it's been really good over these last few weeks getting, you know, two people each week to talk to, and obviously it creates a lot of content. And the thing that hit me leaving this facility today after we spoke, after we talked with Drew Petzing, is that like you said, there won't be anything next week because it's a holiday. We presume there will be something the next week, which guess what? That's the week before training camp starts. So it shows how close it really is right around the corner, and then it'll be out to Glendale, pretty much on a regular basis when camp begins. And I think there's a lot of people looking forward to that, a lot of the fans too, to get out there and see this, you know, new version of the Cardinals. Yeah, it's going to be fun. Right now we just get to talk about what's happening around the list. This is the list and rankings time of year, so we're going to see the NFL Network's Top 100. We're seeing rankings from Touchdown Law and all about the other publications. But we do, and this is a kind of repeat of topic, but since we have Howard, since I've got Howard, we can get his take on it. We want to talk about Kyla Marie again, because of course, for some reason, after two years of building up the reputation of Kyla Marie, the old stuff had to be brought back up. But at the same time, we're getting MVP talk. It's that time of year. No one thinks that Kyla Marie is a favor to win MVP, but we've got some data from Howard in terms of, you know, even if Kyla has a very good statistical year, we have some data about, it's not just about the number. So Howard, let's go ahead and get started. Seth and I talked about on the last show, what we thought about the stuff that Colin Coward brought up, the idea that there is still a stigma about him or whatever it seems to be that Kyla seems to be one of the least supported good quarterbacks in his moat market that we can find in the NFL. Yeah, I think that's pretty accurate, and I think there's a certain amount of that lack of support outside the market too. There just has always seemed to be this, trying to think of the right word for it. You know, there's certainly people who support him and like him and feel the, obviously very talented and even Colin Coward said that in what he talked about. He talked about how talented he believes Kyla is, but then there's all that, you know, talk about the off field stuff. Is he, is he a leader, the whole video game issue, which really, you know, reared its ugly head with the contract a couple of years ago with the independent study clause and that he would have to put in a certain amount of hours before he watched TV or played video games or things like that. And I remember at one point, Jess, there was someone who did a study and showed how Kyla's play tailed off in some seasons after the release of Call of Duty, the new Call of Duty in October. Well, of course, his play in those years also tailed off because he got injured. And there were other, there were other facts. And the Andre Hopkins got hurt and yes, Colin got hurt and chase Edmonds got hurt. I think the one thing that, and I alluded to this and what I wrote was that what Coward said was there probably uncertain people's minds. There probably is this stigma attached to them. I don't know if it's a huge stigma. I think a certain amount of it is unwarranted. And as I noted, I mean, Kyla Murray is not a guy. Who goes out partying, you know, with people. He's not a guy is out till two in the morning clubbing. He's kind of a home body. And so, yeah, exactly. And as we've seen, especially over these last 18 months in terms of what he's had to do to rehab the knee, learn the offense, all that. Well, you know what, if he's at the facility for all those hours every day, rehab in the knee and then learning the offense and all that. So what if he plays video games for a couple of hours at night? When Colin kept using the word addicted to video games, what does that even mean? What's an addiction? I mean, that's what these are. I know, like, if you pick, if someone talked to Colin about what he said, Colin himself did not say Kyla had a problem. He said that there is a stigma about it, that there are studies that therapists say that gamers are bad for marriages. Whether it's because of the gaming or because of the stigma that goes along with gaming. Like once you hit adulthood, you get past college and you're still a regular gamer. There is the idea of, oh, you're immature. You need to do real stuff. And whether or not that young man or young woman is doing those things, the idea that playing video games instead of doing something more productive, it sounds like my mother in the 1990s when we were allowed to play 30 minutes of video games a day during the summer each. That 30 minutes was our limit. And it was different because, like, the thing now, video gaming is highly social. It's how you get together with your friends. And let's be honest, we haven't actually heard anything about Kyla's gaming in about two years because it was about three years ago. It was about three years ago that he joined the phase clan. And I believe that's kind of where it became a big deal that he was monetizing the e-sports side of his. And he's always been one to say he wishes he doesn't think he should be limited. Like if he had a choice, he would probably play both baseball and football and be do e-gaming, e-sports as well because, you know, the guy who's super competitive, he doesn't believe in limiting himself. But the fact of the matter is we haven't heard anything in the last two years about how much he's gaming or not because, and I think it all kind of stems from the fact that there were people within the organization feeding national reporters this criticism. These truer, like the way tree or just minor things about Kyla's character. And that's the thing, the biggest thing I took away is that what Kyla, what Colin was saying is that, you know, around the league, execs around the league, fans in Arizona, they're like, they're like, nope, but I don't believe, they don't trust Kyla. They don't believe in him. And that even, and I know that Steve Kaim, which is, which is highly ironic, Kyla Murray made Steve Kaim in those last four years. And it's the same thing because I've always believed that everything that the Cardinals had in terms of success after the Steve Wilkes, after Cliff Kingsberg took over, was because of Kyla and the fact that Steve Kaim or his office would leak such detrimental things about the franchise quarterback. Of course, that would put him at odds with the organization. Of course, he would decide to work out alone in Texas if he did not believe that what was happening in the building was conducive to winning. Those are all good points. And I think also that we have to give a little slack to the offseason aspect of it because in Kyla's second year was the pandemic. So there was no office. No one was in the building. Same thing pretty much. Well, in 2021, the NFL PA was saying two players don't. And Kyla just locked step with the veterans in the building. And I've always said that the one thing overlooked somewhat in that controversial new contract overlooked aside from the independent study clause, were the huge off-season bonuses that the team put in his contract as an incentive for him to be there. And I always thought, well, why would you have to incentivize a guy with over a million, a million five for showing up with the off-season program? I have a theory of that. And it goes along with study clause that it wasn't necessarily that. And I think both of those were a bid will thing. And this is the biggest contract the bid will family had ever given out. And so knowing what we expect this of you, so we're going to put money into it. And I think some of it was a reaction to what was being said to the public. He was reacting to public comments, which whether or not might have been true. It's true. Basically, the only time Kyla was, you could criticize Kyla for not participating in the off-season program was in 2022. And that was all about the contract, which is a common thing. Nick boasted to this, your brand and I, you've spent doing it. It is standard operating procedure for players who are in a contour looking for an extension. That's absolutely normal. But I think it was a case of there is part of Kyla that still needed to grow into the leadership role of a franchise quarterback. And so bid will, whether or not, I'm sure Kyla would have done it anyway. Bid will kind of wanted to make sure that there were a number of things. Okay, well, we expect you to be here, so we'll pay you this. Or maybe that was the agent saying, well, if you want us here, pay us. Like, if you want him to be here, show that you want him there and, and incent him to be there. And then he'll have ever reason to be there. That's the quiet, it's the quiet thing that no one's been saying that very few people have been saying about why Buddha Baker was in all the off-season work this year without complaining. You know, Bonnie put made to put in his contract $400,000 in a workout bonus. Yeah, exactly. And he wasn't there last year. He wasn't there for OTAs. He was present for the mini camp, but didn't go on the field. And so that was all, you know, like you said, you know, a big part of it. And the one thing Jess will never know. We'll never know what would have happened. Where things would be right at this moment, het Kyler, not torn his ACL at the end of the 2020 season. Because who knows, suppose that doesn't happen. And they end up winning two or three games down the stretch. And they've got six or seven wins instead of four. And they keep rolling. Things very get fired with clay still leading. That's always the great. What if a lot of things is, well, did that at play because 2022 was a disaster. It was, it went from, they went from being bad. And then the absolute worst thing that could happen was like, you're just Kyler stay healthy. And then he tears his ACL in December. So that he wouldn't be able to do anything till at least mid season the next year. It was just highly frustrating, but it led to like the circumstances led to what appears to be a positive thing, which brings us to coming to next of the rise of your podcast. As our Cardinals talk, we will discuss more about Kyler and where we put the good stuff. Let's come to next and rest your seat right. If you're a facilities manager at a warehouse and your HVAC system goes down, it can turn up the heat, literally. But don't sweat it, Granger has you covered. Granger offers over a million industrial grade products for all your operations, including warehouse HVAC maintenance. And even better, they offer access to experts and fast delivery. So you and your warehouse can both keep your cool. Call 1-800-Granger, click Ranger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. We're back on the rise-up secret podcast, the best our Cardinals talk on the web. Continuing our talk about Kyler Murray, just like the other show when we said we're talking about the same format, we talked about the criticism, but now we've got, he came on strong, he was healthy. Over the final eight games of the season, statistically across the board, it was pretty above average. Pretty pedestrian for a solid starting quarterback. But really what we saw is over the last three or four games that his play really took off. And that was without any sort of contributions from the receiving core. It was basically the Kyler Conner and Trey offense, and they were still incredibly effective. This offseason, you get Michael Wilson in year two. You get a greater role for Greg Dorch, they signed say Jones, and most importantly, they draft Marvin Harrison Jr., who many believe will be a star, even in year one. I think it's almost unfair, but kind of the expectations is that Harrison will have the type of rookie season that Justin Jefferson or Jamar Chase had in terms of impact. But that's led to small little rumblings of now, Kyler Murray as a Dark Horse MVP, NFL.com. Judy Patisse talked about it, Trey McBride. I know that the interview that led for that was because of that article about Judith Patisse. Trey McBride expressed his confidence that he's like, "Yeah, he could be an MVP." It isn't that simple though, right? It's not as simple as Kyler being great statistically, which thus far in his career, I think that's one of the things that's held him back in terms of the public view. When Kyler was drafted, the type of player that he was, people were expecting mad fantasy numbers. I think they were expecting Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes type fantasy numbers, where he's thrown for 4,000 yards rushing for nearly 1,000 between 30 and 40 total touchdowns between passing and rushing, and he just hasn't had that. There were glimpses of it, but he's a guy who doesn't need the video game stats. He's content with simply winning games, that said, you've looked at some research about MVP races in that MVP. In addition, and perhaps greater impact on MVP voting isn't just the stats, but it's the wins. What did you find that we also can find already on Cards Wire? I mean, it was interesting because I had researched this almost four years ago when DeAndre Hopkins came here, and he was bringing up at the time when the Cardinals were playing good football before that season kind of turned the other way, a large part because of Kyler's shoulder injury. And me as an aside, I think one of the most important things in the last eight games last season, aside from what he did on the field, was that he stayed healthy because so many of those other seasons when he was being talked about as a potential MVP contact or potential MVP was that seasons went south partially because of injuries to him and injuries to other players. But when Hopkins brought that up in 2020, I thought to myself, let me look this up. And so I researched it then of what the average wins were for the team that the player won the MVP. And it was right around 13, a little bit higher. And so now that this MVP talk came in, a guy said, "Oh, you know what, I got to update my stats, right? I got to update my stats from 2020 and '21, '22 and '23 since then." And it stayed relatively the same. And I don't remember how many years I went back then. I think it might have been just a decade of the 2000s, but this time I just went back 20 years and went back to 2004 and looked at the guys who won. And the average is right there at 13 victories per season for the quarterback on the team where the quarterback won the MVP. And I believe it was eight seasons where a team won 14 or more. And so that basically says if you're going to be, now there were some obviously less than 13, but first of all, you have to win at least 10. Nobody has ever won less than 10 in the MVP. There's only one guy with 10 that did, and that was on Adrian Peterson coming off and torn ACL. One of the most special seasons we've ever seen from a running back for almost 2100 yards. So he's the only one with 10. After that, everyone's 11, 12, and then the other numbers as we mentioned. So it definitely coincides with team success because you know there's going to be a bunch of teams in the league that are going to have 12, 13, who knows, maybe 14 wins. And then most of the time it'll come back to the quarterback on that team that essentially wins it because there'll be enough really good quarterbacks with that many wins that are worth that are worthy. And that's, you know, that's the way it's been, you know, Lamar Jackson last year, team 113 Patrick Mahomes a year before team 114 previous two years and Rogers one two years in a row Packers 113 each season. So you better have the wins. If you're going to even have a chance to get support in that. So it all comes down to how the Cardinals play. And we have to believe just that the Cardinals are in. I don't know that anybody really expects that to happen. But if something would come together and all of a sudden this team plays well and stays healthy all throughout the roster. If all of a sudden they would win 12 or 13 games. Well, a lot of it's going to be because of Kyler Barry. Absolutely because of Kyler, though, the idea of 12, 13 game feels really, really funny. Like even, even myself, one of the most incredible optimistic positive guys when it comes to projecting things for the Cardinals, I think, you know, best honestly, best case scenario this year. That they're reaching their absolute peak would be about 10 wins, I think. And even if they want 10 wins, that would be remarkable. And I think he would be, I don't think he'd win MVP. But I believe unless it's a down year for quarterbacks across the board. But I believe he would get MVP votes, you know, at least that he would get if the Cardinals can make the playoffs. If they can get to that 10 win, which I don't think they will, like I think they'll hit, I think they will just miss the playoffs this year. But if they hit that 10 win mark, Kyler has, you know, 4,000 passing yards for the first time in his career and he, he rushes for five or 600 and they win 10 games. And because we know the defense isn't going to be great, we can, we can assume there'll be improvement. But last year after being atrocious, we can't expect them to go from atrocious to good. It's going to be from atrocious to, you know, maybe tolerable. You know, they're going to need Kyler to be a great player this year. And even then, I think it'll just be enough for him to get MVP votes. And not the MVP award because I think there's going to be, you know, whether that's a Brock Purdy who's going to put up. It feels like unless things fall apart, Brock Purdy is going to have massive numbers. Again, this year, Patrick Mahomes is going to have, like, I think the additions to the receiver room there in Kansas City will be great for Patrick Mahomes. You know, if Aaron Rodgers comes back from his injury and then the Jets are successful. They're all eyes are going to be on him. There's a number of quarterbacks. And then you even go to like Tyree Kill, who was kind of an MVP candidate with a special receiving season last year. You know, there's going to be that CJ Stroud if he can replicate what he did late last season over the course of a full year that, you know, there's going to be a number of players that you're going to consider before Kyler. But if he, like, if he gets any MVP votes this year, that will mean the Cardinals probably overachieved what people expect. Yeah, no question about it. And I think that if you, if they can get to 10 wins, then all of a sudden you've won six more. And he has not necessarily a spectacular year, but it will be looked at in terms of MVP is that we'll look at what the Cardinals did. And they did it on Kyler Murray's shoulder. So there will be some votes. And let's remember now with the way the voting is done. Unlike years ago now for several years, the voting, where in the past the voters only picked one player as their MVP of the 50 voters. And so it was dominated by just, you know, a couple guys normally. Well, now you, you put five, you put five guys on the ballot. And so all of a sudden there's more chances for other players to get, you know, some support. And if it happens to be one of those years where there's a lot of really good players. And I think it was almost trending that way last year, where it looked like there's going to be a bunch of candidates. And then Lamar Jackson with the way the Ravens played. You know, they kind of, he kind of ended up, you know, running away with it. But you never know how that is going to go. But, and the other part though too, in terms of improvement. And we've seen this at times when teams all of a sudden get from one, one level to the other pretty quickly because in the NFL with so many close games. I mean, look how many people have said, yes, last season, Cardinals won four. And people said, Oh, if they had Kyler Murray the first half of the year, they might have won seven. Honestly, they should have ones. They should have won seven. They should have been Washington. They choked away the Giants game. And they missed a game winning field goal against Seattle. Those are three games. They should have one. Exactly. So if you enter, as the way I look at it, if you enter December with whatever there is left at that point, five or six games. And you're even then right around the 500 level if you're, you know, five and five or, you know, six and five, something like that. And all of a sudden, and all of a sudden you, you know, win some games there coming in and you're in the hunt for a playoff spot. All of a sudden you roll off a few wins in a row. Boom, all of a sudden you could get to 10 or 11. Now again, I'm not predicting it. But in this league, where the line of victory is so slim, and there are so many close games, you start gaining confidence. You start winning some of those close games and making those plays in the fourth quarter. And let me say this to what you said about the defense. If you're, if you're playing good enough offense, and especially with the way this team can play with running with passing all the different things they can do, you keep your defense off the field. Just just by that alone, you're going to, you would think you're going to improve it and get some leads in games, and that's going to help the defense as well. So I think we'll see improvement from this defense with the level is who knows there's a lot of questions and a lot of unknowns, but I think this defense can get after people. If the offense is playing good enough to control the ball, then I think that's going to help the other side of the ball. Coming in next on the Rise of Shira podcast, Mr. O'Kron was talking about. We've got one segment left. We're going to talk about that after offensive coordinator Drew Petzing addressed the media on Thursday. What do we take away from that? That's coming in next on Rise of Shira. If you're a facilities manager at a warehouse and your HVAC system goes down, it can turn up the heat, literally. But don't sweat it, Granger has you covered. Granger offers over a million industrial grade products for all your operations, including warehouse HVAC maintenance. And even better, they offer access to experts and fast delivery, so you and your warehouse can both keep your cool. Call 1-800-Grange-er, click Granger.com or just stop by. Granger for the ones who get it done. We're back on the Rise of Shira podcast, Mr. O'Kron was talking on the web. Howard and I were both at the press conference on Thursday held with offensive coordinator Drew Petzing, and he was peppered with all sorts of questions, whether it was Kyla Murray. He joked about needing two balls, seeing how he fooled Kyla into thinking he's a genius. He talked about a number of players. Howard, what were some of the biggest takeaways that you got when we spoke with Drew on Thursday? I have really enjoyed listening to him. Last year, of course, he would meet with the media every week during the regular season. And I enjoyed listening to him as an approach to the game. To me, it sounds, I wish he would talk a little slower, but having said that, I think the way he talks about the game, he's humble. He, I think he, you know, Kyla called him a genius, Tre McBride called him very smart. You can see that he is. I don't think there's any dumb coordinators in the NFL. And the one takeaway, though, is when he talked about the enjoyment of putting together a game plan and a collaboration with the coaches and the challenges of that on a week-to-week basis. And then acknowledge when he was asked, well, how much easier is that or how much more fun can that be when you have the pieces in the offense to really feel you can put together a game plan that has a lot of weapons and a lot of different things you can do. And, and he said something, I'll never forget that Dick Vermeil said, after the Rams won the Super Bowl in 1999 and before that season, people were talking about him being fired. And he said, Hey, I became a much better coach when I had better players. And that's pretty much exactly. And that's what Drew passing said. He says, I'm a much better play caller when I've got really good players and that plays out that plays out really well in the locker room when that sound bite gets out. Because he's saying our success is because of players. It shows the players that the coach doesn't think that he's smarter than the guys on the field. Like, it's his job to put them in position. But that's the sort of thing that really goes over well because rather than, you know, you hear a coach saying we put together a good plan and we didn't execute it, he's saying, I'm, you know, I look better when there's better players because they do things. And it's my job to make sure that those good players can do good things. And I think the other part in terms of what when he joked about needing two footballs was when he then said that a lot of times the quarterback. When any, then he was asked, well, is there a worry that some players are going to be upset here if they're not getting the ball about spreading the ball around. He said, well, you can't worry about that. You just got to do what the game plan tells you to do. And then he said, but he's had the conversation with Kyler because some quarterbacks, especially will say, oh, the pressure's on. I got to make sure to get the ball to that guy. And he says, no, don't worry about that. That's my job. That's my job. You just go where you should with the with the ball, make good decisions. And everything will take care of itself. But then the other factor I think that's really hanging when I say when you say hanging over a team, it has a negative connotation. So I don't know what the best word is, but I think the overall view of this team in terms of what money awesome for it has put together with this talent acquisition in the last 18 months is the kind of players that are all about winning. And that's what passing talked about today. It's all about winning. And he says, so players want to be on winners. And so, for all of a sudden, you're maybe not getting the ball as much as you like, and he loves players who want the ball, because they believe that that'll help the team win. But he said, players will be fine with it and they'll want to be here. If you're winning, that is absolutely, that's all. Absolutely. So that that's a big thing with with the message that Jonathan has, it's working right now because they're making progress. But if they stall, that message won't sound as good as long as they keep progressing, players will be bought in. No doubt. No doubt. And he said, I think the players we have are not going to have an issue with it. Now, obviously, like you said, everybody's optimistic on June 27. Right. Everybody everybody is, but you really look at this, and you can see that there's reason to be optimistic. So much of it does revolve around health and all those things. But I think there's, it looks to me like there's pretty good depth on this roster. You get injuries. I mean, you just can't avoid them totally. And so you better have guys who can step up. But your key players, your key players have to stay healthy. Yes, always. And that's always, you know, so important for anything. It sounds trite and a cliche. And I know there's some people have all teams have injuries yet to be over. So, you know, if the train ride misses two games that's seven, then Trey McBride missing eight games, you know, you can handle like we're best players missing a game or two. It just becomes problematic when you have multiple guys missing four, but they end up on injured reserve and things like that. And you know, if you look at the depth. Overall, you like what you have it running back already. Mike, what the receiver room looks like right now, because it feels like you have four guys that you can absolutely trust to make plays and nobody, nobody's talking much about Zay Jones. He's, he's been a productive receiver. How, how they'll use him is going to be a question mark. But when you've got Harrison, Michael Wilson, Zay Jones and Greg Dorich, who seems to make plays every time he's on the field, you've got four receivers that you feel really good about and you can trust. And so if somebody has to miss a game or two, you're still left with three. Trey McBride goes the same thing. Elijah Higgins showed enough promise last year that if Trey goes down that you could get it. I think you probably could get a gamer to a pretty, you know, solid production from him. The offensive line appears to have more depth, especially on the interior. You feel you don't feel as good as as well. Good. If Paris and and Jonah Williams get hurt because you've got Calvin Beach and who you can trust for a game or two, but you don't want to test that depth further. But yeah, offensively, the depth feels really good and you can weather a minor injury or two or one decent injury and like that. And yeah, I like, one of the things that I'm fascinated by that that we haven't heard from say is that if you look at the pedigree, if you look at his background. You know, he's a guy that worked under Stafansky, like the guys that influence him, Stafansky, who comes from Schurmer, who comes from Andy Lee. This is a in. We like outside. This is a traditional. This is a modern West Coast, traditional West Coast offense that he runs. And we've, you know, Andy reads offense, which is a West Coast based offense that has modern concepts to it for spread. Those offenses have been successful for decades. No, you're 100% right. And so, and, and I wouldn't sleep on Chris Moore also I think there's going to be competition there with him and Zay Jones. You're probably going to keep five receivers. You know, the question becomes usually your fourth or fifth receiver have to play special teams. So who knows how that's going to play out, but you're right, the depth is there. The toughest thing with injuries, like you said, is if some guy misses a bunch of games, or if you get multiple injuries at a certain position, like, like the Cardinals had the one year with the offensive line a couple seasons ago. Then last year on the defensive line was just, you know, guys rotating and revolving all around. So you need to keep your units together. And, but I think there, I think there's even while we have questions about the defense, I think there's, it's looking to be like there's pretty good depth there too, on the defensive side. So this is going to be a very intriguing team, I think, just to watch and see how it, you know, how it does, you know, play out. But I think overall that overriding aspect, which I alluded to with with the offense and, you know, guys not worried about getting the ball. The, the character of these players that they are so strong about getting is win, you know, win first guys, you know, guys that want to win their team team first I guess is a better way of saying it. And those are the type of guys that they've, they're consistently going after it. And when you build that on, yeah, how many times we heard the word culture in the last, you know, last 18 months. And mission it and they really are like, when it comes down to the core, they are building, they're trying to build teams the way the Patriots have done it. And like if you were, if you remember hearing what Tom Brady said it, the Patriots ring of honor Hall of Fame. And it was all about, it's all about team, like it doesn't matter, like you football is so team, or it doesn't matter how good you are if you are not. And I believe that's what the Cardinals are purposely building and so perhaps, you know, when you've got super athletic players who are very talented, like, you know, Isaiah Simmons or Marco Wilson who just didn't quite fit. Because maybe they cared a touch more about what their role was as opposed to how it fit in with the team, not to say anything that it seems like they, especially with James Connor they cleansed the roster and like, who are the guys that they see you seem to have been, you know, that quietly disappears so you got Isaiah Simmons gone you've got Marco Wilson gone Hollywood Browns of like, are those the guys that they cleansed or was it back of the roster guys I don't know but they really have put together a roster of team of players that really believe in being a team. And, and I think as long as there is progress in wins that will continue to work like it has so long for the Patriots which, you know, all the other element to that is good quarterback play and you have, you know, unselfish players, that's a recipe that is that is always a recipe for success in the NFL. Not about. I mean it's, it is, it is pretty simple. Right. And that, and that level. And it is the ultimate team sport. And, but it still comes down you always hear guys and Austin Ford said it a couple of you always hear coaches and, and personal guys say it is that most games will come down to four or five plays. Obviously there's a lot of plays in a game, but they'll come down to four or five plays either four or five plays that you made or four or five plays you didn't make. And when you have the number that blew me away when I saw it last year is we all know there's about 50 or five, plus somewhere in that 50 to mid 50s of games that are decided by one score or less, but the number that blew me away just was that they're close on average is between 70 and 75% of NFL games are one score games at some point in the fourth quarter. Yeah. And when you have that. Well, the teams that are good find a way to win. At least, at least the majority of those games. I mean, look at the Vikings. Right. You know, two years ago, two seasons ago, they were a lemon and they were letting it all score. That's, that's flooky good. Like you. The thing about that is like, you can control that a little bit, but it also is statistically improbable to, to be well above average in close games. And then last year I don't know what their record was but it wasn't bad. It wasn't as good. And all of a sudden and granted, you know, cousins got hurt after about halfway through the season, but they didn't win those close games so they weren't a playoff team. And in this league, when the difference between making the play I mean think of it this way. And if you win seven, right? Yeah, you're seven and 10 you're under 500 it's not horrible, but it's not good enough. All you got to do is find a way to win three of those that you lost, and all of a sudden you're 10. And there's probably three games in there that you were, you were right there at the end, and, and end up the other, you didn't make a play or the other team did. And boom, you lost that game that that's how fine a line. It is in the NFL and I think sometimes, you know, many lose sight of that. And with that, we will end this second edition of the Rise of Secret podcast, the best our Cardinals talking on the web for this week. We will return here soon with Seth Cox we've got, we've got our divisional ranking show coming up in the next few weeks. We've also got a number of opponent preview shows and if there's anything else that comes up, I'm sure Seth and I or Howard and I will get you that off season NFL content. That's how we're bossing. I'm just through. This is the Rise of Secret podcast. We'll be back again soon. Thank you for listening as well. If you're a facilities manager at a warehouse and your HVAC system goes down, it can turn up the heat, literally. But don't sweat it, Granger has you covered. Granger offers over a million industrial grade products for all your operations, including warehouse HVAC maintenance. And even better, they offer access to experts and fast delivery, so you and your warehouse can both keep your cool. Call 1-800-Granger, click Granger.com or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. It's always. Thanks for listening to the latest edition of the Rise Up Sea Red Podcast. Listen to previous episodes and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Audio Boom, or many other podcast platforms so shows are delivered directly to your mobile device. Please give the show a 5 star rating and always support the sponsors who support the show. We'll be back soon for the best hour of Cardinals Talk on the web. Rise Up Red Sea, B Red Sea Red, and of course, Rise Up Sea Red. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC]