Dealing Cards: Zac Dysert is back on the Cardinals’ active roster

TEMPE, Ariz. — No one is saying Zac Dysert is the Cardinals’ quarterback of the future.

Signed to the team’s practice squad before Week 1 and active for Arizona’s Week 5 game against San Francisco, the former Miami (Ohio) quarterback who was elevated to the active roster Tuesday is only, still, a Cardinal.

He is now part of the 53-man roster because the Cardinals wanted to keep it that way, because the Miami Dolphins, with their own issues at the position, were trying to poach Dysert from Arizona’s practice squad and bring him back to South Beach.

“I think he’s got a really good chance to be a good player,” Cardinals coach Bruce Arians said.

Dysert entered the NFL as a seventh-round pick of the Denver Broncos in 2013 after leaving Miami with 12,013 career passing yards as well as 73 touchdowns and 51 interceptions. By the time his college career was over, he was also the school’s all-time leading passer, passing Ben Roethlisberger.

At 6-foot-3 and 221 pounds, the 26-year-old has good size for the position. He also has a nickname, “Dragon,” which Carson Palmer said Dysert chose when given five seconds to come up with one, lest a moniker be chosen for him.

“Well to be honest, Drew (Stanton) said his nickname and a movie popped into my head from his nickname, so I was like ahh yeah, just kind of said it,” Dysert said. “And it kind of stuck.”

As for the movie?

“Step Brothers,” Dysert admitted, with a laugh.

Dragon it is.

At any rate, Dysert, who had a choice to either stay in Arizona or leave for the Miami Dolphins, decided to stick around in the desert.

“I was there in the preseason and they already cut me once,” Dysert said. “So I’m like, I’m not going to go back there when they already cut me.”

Dysert said Cardinals QB coach Freddie Kitchens talked with him about what was going on and fought for him.

“He’s kind of had my back since Day 1 here, so kind of bouncing around and being a journey kind of guy, you don’t really find a whole lot of teams that are going to have your back like that,” he said. “So I’ve liked Freddie, I’ve liked the whole organization, all the coaches and players, since I’ve been here.

“I just thought this was the best fit for me.”

Dysert said he also is now signed through next season, and a possible future with the Cardinals factored into his decision. He figured even if he went back to Miami, he likely would have only been there for the next three weeks before being cut. And since he has spent the entire season now in Arizona, he figured it was best to stay where he had built some strong relationships.

He has also spent the last few months working and learning.

“I’ve spent a lot of time in the film room by myself, pretty much, and Byron (Leftwich) has helped me out loads — I can’t even tell — and Freddie’s always had my back, whatever questions I’ve had; Drew’s been nothing but supportive and helpful to me learning the offense,” Dysert said, reaffirming that Arizona was the best place for him. “I feel like I’ve grown over the past 14 weeks, 15 weeks of the season, making the right decisions, the right strides in the right direction.”

In this year’s preseason, Dysert completed 20-of-31 passes for 202 yards with one touchdown and one interception. Since then, the only people who have seen him work have been those on the practice field, and like Arians, Palmer is also high on the young passer’s abilities.

“He’s picked up the offense extremely quick, he’s very, very bright, he throws it really well, he moves around — it looks really, really fluid in the pocket,” he said. “I think B.A.’s spot on with that comment, because I said the same thing; I was shocked that he’s bounced around a little bit, but I think he’s found a good spot here.”

Dysert said the idea that the Cardinals wanted to keep him around gives him confidence, though he is unsure if the next three weeks will offer any playing time. It would be awesome, he said, but regardless will prepare the way he always has, as if he was going to start.

One thing that has changed, however, is his paycheck, with the increase from being a member of the practice squad to that of a player on the roster a nice thing, especially as the holidays near.

“Oh 100 percent,” he said, with a laugh. “Me and my agent were texting, and Freddie, he kind of said, ‘Merry Christmas’ yesterday, I was like, ‘Thank you, I’ll take it, all day long.’

“So yeah, it’s awesome. Going to try to take advantage and just kind of move on.”

Injury update

The first installment of this week’s injury report can be found here, and for the Cardinals, there are no real surprises. Palmer, Larry Fitzgerald and John Brown were all given their normal Wednesday off, though Jermaine Gresham (knee) and D.J. Humphries (concussion) being out could be a concern. Tyrann Mathieu returned in a limited capacity.

“Ty moved great, we’ll just see how the shoulder reacts tomorrow,” Arians said.

What hangover?

There has been a belief for some this season that part of the Cardinals’ struggles have to do with the fact that they were trounced in last season’s NFC Championship Game.

The thought process goes that teams who lose in the Super Bowl generally suffer a kind of hangover the following season, and since the Cardinals came so close to the sport’s biggest game, they may too have been feeling the ill effects.

Not true, says Palmer.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I didn’t notice it. Each season is its own. Each season is so different. Whatever happened the previous season has such little bearing on the next season, and I think that was the case this year.”

Arians, however, said when the season is over he will sit back and reflect on everything that happened this go-around, from what they did in OTAs to all the speeches he gave. He will compare it to what’s been done in the past to see if there is something he should change going forward, but otherwise does not feel bad about raising expectations.

“I never think that expectations are a bad thing, and I think it’s great to raise the level of expectations,” he said. “Now that’s a tough pill to swallow for the fans sometimes, because you want to raise expectations as a coach. You don’t want to be 8-8. If you say, ‘hey man we’ll be 8-8,’ and if you do better, ‘hey, I’m great.’

“No, I want to win a Super Bowl.  I want to raise expectations. If we don’t make it, we don’t make it.”

Indeed, the Cardinals did little to quell the Super Bowl talk that followed them over the summer and early into the season. While they were not necessarily outspoken with regards to how great they felt they were, there was plenty of talk about confidence in knowing what they were capable of and how this was set to be a special year.

Hindsight will always be 20/20 and people will have their own opinions as for why the team fell flat, but Palmer does not believe the title talk was a reason.

“There are a lot of teams with a lot of expectations that didn’t meet them this year,” he said. “Regardless of what you did the year before, I just don’t think it has an effect on us. I didn’t notice one.”

Tim Hightower returns to Arizona

Tim Hightower had a solid three-season run with the Cardinals to begin his career, as the fifth-round pick from Richmond ran for 399 yards and 10 touchdowns as a rookie before tallying 598 yards and eight scores in year two and a team-best 736 yards and five touchdowns in year three.

He also caught 118 passes for 801 yards over the three seasons, with his most notable reception — an eight-yard screen pass he took into the end zone to lift the Cardinals to Super Bowl XLIII — not counting among those stats.

From Arizona, Hightower spent a season with the Washington Redskins, but was lost to a torn ACL five games into the campaign. He was back in Washington the following camp but was cut before the season began, and at that point he was out of the NFL.

That is, until the New Orleans Saints signed him in 2015.

Hightower appeared in eight games for New Orleans last season, running for 375 yards and four touchdowns, and in 13 games this season has notched 453 yards and a score. He has also caught 19 passes for 178 yards and a touchdown this year, and has proven to be a valuable — if unlikely — member of the offense.

“Pretty incredible,” Saints QB Drew Brees said of Hightower’s re-emergence. “You know, not sure if there’s a guy who has had to work harder to get himself back to playing and then just the maintenance and what he does on a weekly basis — I see him in the weight room, I see him in the training room, I see him in the film room — I see him, he’s always very focused, everything always has a purpose and an intent to it.

“Obviously he’s had to overcome a lot, with his knee injury in Washington and being out for a while, but I think being here has probably rejuvinated him in a lot of ways and it’s also been great for our team, to have a guy like that here who we know has been through so much and sacrificed so much, and yet he’s really playing at a high level and I think it inspires us all.”

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