The Rise Up, See Red podcast

Cardinals training camp updates: July 28 with Howard Balzer

The Cardinals returned to practice on Sunday for another three-day cycle of training camp practices. Howard Balzer gives us the latest updates from camp, talking about center Hjalte Froholdt, Jon Gaines, edge defenders, team health, and the fun that season ticket holders had for their exclusive practice.

Duration:: 16m
Broadcast on:: 29 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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Go to the city of Dakono.com for more information. This is Howard Balzer, and welcome to this Cardinals Camp update for the Rise Up Sea Red Podcast, the best hour of Cardinals Talk on the web. While on Sunday at State Farm Stadium, there was a nice crowd of seasoned ticket holders as the Cardinals participated in the NFL's self proclaimed back together weekend after the team, of course, had the day off on Saturday, and the fans enjoyed it. Certainly, the seasoned ticket holders that were in attendance and cheering for a lot of different things, obviously, and they were addressed by head coach Jonathan Ganon and owner Michael Bidwell, before practice. Afterward, there was, of course, autographs and football shirts, whatever it was, a lot of players participated in that. One of the biggest cheers happened when Marvin Harrison Jr. approached the railing where the fans were, and fans just kind of went nuts, and he signed for several minutes, yelled a frohold. I'm going to get to some notes on him in a moment. He had some fun signing things, and then as he started to leave the field, there were some fans yelling his name down near the goal line where the stands go up instead of where people can be very close to the rail, and you just can't reach over and get an autograph. So, fans were throwing footballs down the yelleda, and he had a nice arm throwing him back, and had a lot of fun with that, of course. NFL Network was covering it, Omar Ruiz, who's at practice, you know, quite a bit. He conducted some interviews as part of the back-together weekend and the closing day on Sunday. Also, SiriusXM NFL Radio is in town. I, of course, do a pro football Hall of Fame radio show for them every week, but Bruce Murray and Kirk Morrison were here as they've been touring different NFL training camps, doing some interviews, and for those who have serious, well, you can hear the show on Monday from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. on the NFL channel, channel 88. So, a fun day with the fans. General Manager Mani Ashenford spoke to the media afterwards and talked about how great it is to have the fans there, and the players get juice for it, but he said what we really hope to do is give the fans a whole lot more to cheer about this season. So, we'll see if all of that comes to fruition. I mentioned some notes on yelleda fro-hole, who's kind of becoming, I don't know, trying to figure out what to call him around around the Cardinals, because he was a guy that no one knew much about last year. He had to make sure that everyone knew how to pronounce his first name, which is yelleda, even though it's spelled H-J-A-L-T-E, and he earned his way to a starting position at center, and it certainly looks like that's going to be the case this season. And yelleda's been kind of a cult figure. I guess that's a word I was kind of looking for with his personality, some of the things he talks about at a session with the media the other day. He was trying to down a protein drink right before everything started, and then talking about a lot of crazy things that, of course, ended with the quote I had in yesterday's podcast, where he talked about wanting to get some very heavy rocks to put in his front yard that he can lift. Well, today, before practice, Jonathan Ganon was asked about yelled his personality. And boy, did Ganon have a lot of fun with that? He talked about, he called him a dirt dog. He referenced the rocks. He referenced crushing a 40 grams, 40 grams of protein before talking to the media. He told a little tale about actually watching a UFC match with Frohol, and Ganon admitted I founded boring, but then Frohol, he says, went crazy. He says, what? Boring? What are you crazy? It's blood on blood, guys twisting the arm of another guy. Are you serious? And so that was the personality, obviously, coming off of yelleda for that. And then Ganon said that I enjoy that part of him, the barbaric part that is part of the game. And he did admit before starting to talk about the dirt dog. He said, I'm going to fly off the cuff here. And he certainly did. And so he said, but that whole personality, he said, is what is cool about him, because he's so intelligent, and you pair that with the other side of him. And he's a cool personality. And Ganon concluded, I just love the guy. And so he said to be the starting center, once again, and we'll see how that plays out during the season. Speaking of the offensive line before practice, Ganon told us that John gains the second, who did not, of course, start training camp on the physically unable to perform list after the torn ACL suffered against the Vikings in the final preseason game last year. He tells before practice, he's been, he had been very limited the first three days taking part in drills, but with the three groups of offensive linemen, that's 15 guys for those who can do that simple arithmetic. He was not there at all. And so before practice today, Ganon was asked about him. And he said, well, he's going to be a little less limited, but still limited. And it was, but it wasn't if you can understand that, because right when the Cardinals went to their 11 on 11, gains got into it, not right away, not right away. But after a few snaps, he was in there with the first unit at left guard. And then he was there with the second unit at left guard. So we're all thinking, okay, that's pretty much where he might be. And can he potentially compete with Evan Brown, who it looks like right now would be the starting left guard on this offensive line? Obviously, a lot of time, not a lot of time, but certainly more than a month between now and the opening of the season. But you have to believe that John gains is at least going to be competing for that. And then with the third group, he was at center. So he's going to get some snaps there. And obviously, it's something that everyone talks about all teams kind of do this. If you're an interior guy, you want players who can play both center and guard. And that's certainly the case with with gains is definitely the case with Evan Brown, who was taking some snaps at center also, and started 16 games for the Seahawks last year at center. And so versatility is so key when you're only dressing usually eight offensive linemen for games. So gains is certainly, he had caught the eye of the coaches last year, and now he's getting back into it. And not so sure he's going to be ready to be the starter at the beginning of the season, but he's definitely someone that the Cardinals certainly like a whole lot. There's been a lot of questions from the outside and from the media too about where the Cardinals are at Edge rusher. And a lot of fans have said they didn't do anything in the off season. They didn't go after a free agent in the draft. All they did was take Xavier Thomas in the fifth round. And I'll tell you one thing though, I ask everybody who thinks that they avoided past Russia's in free agency to look at the guys who signed. There weren't that many. And the ones that did, O'Brien Burns of course, was a trade and signed a mammoth contract with the Giants. And the Giants had to give up draft choice compensation for him. One of the highest paid edge rushers. And I defy pretty much any NFL fan out there any Cardinals fan to tell me if you if you knew who Bryce Huff was before he signed a $17 million a year contract with with the Jets. And so it was at the ego. Now I'm pretty sure it was the Jets. But the bottom line is that's what he signed for in the off season. And so would Cardinal fans have been dancing a jig if they had signed Bryce Huff? They might be saying instead, well, why are you spending the money on that guy? You know, save your money and spend it elsewhere. So that's the whole deal. It's easy to say, sign somebody else. But it's another thing for there to be a lot of quality possibilities available. And one thing that this team is hoping for is that the younger guys will continue to get better. And the two are of course, BJ Ojilare, second round pick last year. And then Zaven Collins, who I guess right now you don't even call that much a younger guy. But he isn't his first contract, fourth and final season of that deal, and was an outside linebacker last year for the first time. So what jump will he take? That's the question. What jump will Ojilare take? Mani Asman, fourth GM has parroted three marks of Jonathan Ganon and all around football, who talk about the biggest jump for players is from the first from the first to the second season. So that's obviously the hope with BJ, who not only had the long, college season and then all the postseason stuff and the draft and all that, but he had a couple of injuries that slowed him and then was playing solid football in the second half of the season. But the other point I'll make is this, you don't have a pass rush normally unless your team that wins games and a team that stops the run. Because when you get to the known pass situations, that's where you get sacks. And how many times can we really look at this team last year and say they were in that known pass situation a whole lot. So the edge rushers should be better just by virtue of the defensive line playing better and doing a better job against the run. So that could be just as big a key as any other part of it. And we'll close this this edition with where the Cardinals are right now with health. Had a story on that earlier and how Jonathan Ganon has talked about an army of people and support staff who have talked about the and figured out the best way to practice with the three practices and then a day off and all those things. And one of the things about it is for these first four days, the Cardinals have had 90 players out there practicing. They have a roster spot available and they haven't even used it. They haven't even considered it considered using it yet. And one of the main reasons is they have enough guys for practice. And Jonathan Ganon pointed out today that last year at this time, they only had 78 healthy players practicing. And that's when you need to have the full compliment on your roster to be able to make sure that nobody is doing too many reps and you don't get injuries because guys are doing a little too much in practice. So where this team is now? Well, they're in a pretty good shape. Obviously, it's very, very early. They haven't been in pads yet. That'll happen on Monday, first day on pads. And of course, that knock on wood on the podium that Jonathan Ganon had when he talked about where they are right now, knowing that, hey, you don't avoid injuries entirely and that they certainly can start creeping in where guys start missing here and there when you get the pads on. So that's what'll be watched more closely in the next couple of days this week with another day off Wednesday and then practices heading into the red and white scrimmage next Saturday. So we'll we'll we'll be watching it very closely. No question about that. And that wraps up this Cardinals camp update from State Farm Stadium. This is Howard Ballzer for the Rise Up Sea Red podcast. 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