The Rise Up, See Red podcast

What to watch in Saints-Cardinals preseason openers with Howard Balzer

The Arizona Cardinals wrapped up training camp this week and face the New Orleans Saints in their preseason opener Saturday. Howard Balzer gives us his final training camp update and tells us what to watch and who to expect to play for the Cardinals in their game on Saturday.

Duration:: 14m
Broadcast on:: 10 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

With the Lucky Land Sluts, you can get Lucky just about anywhere. Daily Beloved, we're gathered here today. Has anyone seen the bride and groom? Sorry, sorry, we're here. We were getting lucky in the limo when we lost track of time. No, Lucky Land Casino, with cash prizes that add up quicker than a guest registry. In that case, I pronounce you Lucky. Play for free at LuckyLand Sluts.com. No purchase necessary. BGW grab, boy, we're prohibited by law. 18+ terms and conditions apply. Is your vehicle stopping like it should? Does it squeal or grind when you break? Don't miss out on summer break deals at O'Reilly Auto Parts. 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. Well, it's here everyone, the start of another preseason. Sometimes I begin to wonder, with all the years that I've covered pro football, how many preseason games have I watched, how many hours that I'll never get back have been spent watching these games, I shudder to think what that total might be. But it's kind of the necessary evil of pro football, even though the games have been reduced and will probably be reduced again in the near future when the league decides and agrees with the players to play an 18th regular season game. But many of you, maybe a lot of you do realize, but many of you might not even remember or no when the NFL actually played six preseason games, yes, six of them and they were serious. They were starters, a lot of times who played a good amount of those games. It was totally a different world back then. In fact, I can recall back in the day when I worked for many years for the sporting news, covering pro football for them. And I made the monumental error, at least in the NFL's eyes, of referring in print to these games as exhibition games, for which I got a very angry note, I don't remember who was a phone call or it wasn't an email because there wasn't emails back then saying no Howard, these are not exhibition games. They are preseason games and we've all kind of fallen into the trap of calling them that even though in other sports, there's no problem calling baseball, the exhibition season with spring training and all those things. But in any event, this is where we are and a rite of summer and because there's so few games during the regular season and so much time in between the end of the season and the playoffs and the start of the next, that everybody is champion at the bit to get it all going. And I often use this analogy where I say, hey, can't wait for training camp to start, can't wait for training camp. And then after about a couple of days, you start going, okay, can't wait for that first preseason game, can't wait for that first game. And then invariably about five or 10 minutes in, you're going, okay, I've had enough. Let's get to the regular season. But we have to bear with it, we have to watch all those guys that are fighting for jobs, watching the third and fourth quarter when most of the players on the field won't even be with the team when the regular season rolls around. But there are still things to be gleaned from these games. And so what to watch is certainly much more important when you get to the regular season. But there should be some interesting things to keep an eye out for in this Cardinals pre-season opener Saturday, 5 p.m. Arizona time at State Farm Stadium against the New Orleans Saints. Certainly we have no choice but to watch the backup quarterbacks because Kyler Murray, we know, will not play and so how will Desmond Ritter and Clayton do, Clayton Toon perform when of course they're playing with mostly backups? One interesting situation on offense will be how many of the frontline guys will actually play and if they do, how long will they play? Where will we see some of the starting offensive line in there for half a quarter? Some snaps. Some series or two can't predict. We know Marvin Harris and Junior will play but how long will that be? So certainly everyone will be paying close attention when number 18 is on the field in this game and seeing if there can be some production with the backup quarterbacks. Running back will be interesting because don't expect, we don't know for sure but don't expect James Connor to play in the game and in practice in recent days, in the last week or so, it was looking like a Mario Di Mercado would be the guy with the ones the most. That's the way it was in practice when Connor wasn't having reps with the first unit. Then he injured his shoulder in practice earlier this week and so we'll probably get a pretty good look at Trey Benson in this game and certainly the other backs behind him including Michael Carter and DJ Dallas and I'll get to Dallas in a moment when we talk a little bit about special teams. Tight ends don't expect Trey McBride to play, if it is, it'll be for a very limited action but let's see what those other tight ends are capable of doing. Elijah Higgins did some good things in the second half of the last season. Rick Reimann of course, the rookie, it'd be interesting to get a look at him in this game and a guy that was signed late in the season off the Ravens practice squad Travis Volkolek has shown some pretty good things so I would think that he would get some pretty good playing time in this game. Wide receiver, a guy to really keep an eye on is Xavier Weaver, undrafted free agent who Jonathan Gannon talked about earlier in the week that just pretty much makes plays, catches everything coming his way and has also been fielding kick off and punt returns quite frequently so maybe it is a good time to segue to that before we talk about the defense. The one thing we'll be seeing for the first time is the new kick off rule. Matt Prater, well there's only one kicker so you know Matt Prater is going to do the place kicking and it will be by the way on his 40th birthday. I believe there's only three players in the NFL that are at least 40 years old or more or at least we'll reach it during the season. I think there's Mercedes-Louis a tight end and then Errin Rogers will hit 40 when December comes around so it will now we know that there won't be a whole lot shown. Special teams coaches aren't going to give away things but at least we will see the play. Everyone will see it how it plays out and I've seen some comments from their oh oh it hasn't been that exciting and after Thursday it's only been a handful of games and there were people writing and giving opinions that well there haven't been any really big returns well and so that's defeating the purpose. No the purpose wasn't necessarily to get a whole bunch of long returns. The purpose of it is just to have the kicks return because then you have a chance for it happening. When you're looking at a play that last season only had 20% of the kick offs return. Well we're going to have a much bigger percentage at least certainly in the pre-season. It will be interesting to see down the road how many teams just decide to kick it in the end zone and put the ball on a 30. But the idea of it was just to get the play back in the game and I don't understand people being upset because there weren't big plays that would be like saying well it wasn't a very exciting football game because it wasn't an 80-yard touchdown pass or a 70-yard run whatever it might be. So that will be an interesting aspect and I think we'll see Weaver back on kicks. We'll see about DJ Dallas. He's a veteran but you certainly want to see what he can do so I would suspect that he will be there at least on kick off returns and Weaver may be on them and also put returns. Switching over to the defense there's only 11 defensive linemen on this roster. So I would suspect that most of them will get at least some decent time in the game because you don't want guys playing too many snaps and so how much will Darius Robinson play? That'll be interesting to see. Some of the new guys and I say 11 on the roster don't expect Justin Jones to play because he's missed practice for several days now. So let's just don't have that many guys to put at that position. At linebacker especially with the release of Marquis Haynes on Friday who lasted I think all of one practice with the team and had his contract terminated with an injury waiver. He was injured a little bit last year when he played for the Panthers and when teams put that in the contract they know there's some physical issues and they don't want to get stuck paying a guy if he gets injured and has to go on injured reserve or then have an injury settlement. Well there was an injury waiver for Haynes so he was cut with that and no further pay in terms of the injury because of what he arrived with so but with him gone not that many edge rushes to choose from I'm sure I'm very curious to see Xavier Thomas the fifth round pick and see how much he plays and what he's able to do. Also curious on the inside with Owen Papo got started playing a bit at the end of last season. After Kaiser White got hurt and would expect to see him out there for a decent amount of time and see how much he has perhaps grown in his second season. In the secondary well would be surprised to see Buddha Baker don't know if we'll see Jalen Thompson at all. There's not a lot of depth at safety but I'm sure we'll see the rabbit Daedrian Taylor Demerson sure he'll get some time along with Joey Blunt at safety at the corners Max Melton I'm unlikely to play he's been banged up and doubt Garrett Williams will play he is mispracticed for the most part this week surely we'll see Keith Raul Clark Elijah Jones and some other of those young cornerbacks back there in the secondary so bring your program bring a printed roster so you can figure out who all the people are when they get on the field because that's what is usually the the biggest thing in these games and figuring out who everybody is but it is the preseason. I've always said some people say well it doesn't really matter well they don't count but it does matter and when players are fighting for jobs that is big even if it's just for the practice squad where guys if you're on the practice squad the whole year can make over $200,000 so that's become a pretty good gig where once in a while you get into a game but otherwise you're just out there for three days of practice go to the meetings and boom you're getting a nice little paycheck every week so that's what we have in store for preseason game number one Jess just root and I will be in state farm stadium we'll have a lot of coverage of the game afterward and then in the days coming up as we look forward to next week when the Cardinals will be traveling to Indianapolis to practice against the Colts and then play Indianapolis next Saturday that wraps up this Cardinals camp update from state farm stadium well not really state farm stadium be there tomorrow this is Howard Ballzer for the rise up sea red podcast we'll be back again soon thanks I'm Victoria Cash and I want to invite you to a place called Luckyland where you can play over a hundred social casino style games for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes so what are you waiting for the best way to discover your luck is to spin so go to luckylandslots.com that's luckylandslots.com and get lucky today at Luckyland no purchase necessary vtw group boy prohibited by law 18 plus terms and conditions apply 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 five 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 be red sea red and of course rise up sea red [Music] Looking for excitement Chumba Casino is here play any time play anywhere play on the train play at the store play at home play when you're bored play today for your chance to win and get daily bonuses when you log in so what are you waiting for don't delay Chumba Casino is free to play experience social gameplay like never before go to Chumba casino right now to play hundreds of games including online slots bingo slingo and more live the Chumba life at chumba casino calm hw group no purchase necessary boy prohibited by law sea terms and conditions 18 plus