Arizona Cardinals’ Bruce Arians: ‘It’s the veteran’s team’

Arizona Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians wants veteran leadership to be more vocal this season, even more so than himself.

Arians told Off The Edge with B-Train of Arizona Sports 98.7 FM Monday that the Cardinals will rely more on their veterans in 2015.

“Basically this is not my team,” Arians said. “It’s (the veterans’) team. We’ll be as good as you want to be. Talent is not the issue. You weren’t that far from the Super Bowl when I took over. Get a quarterback, get two quarterbacks. (General manager) Steve Keim has done an unbelievable job adding personnel to this roster.”

That said, his role will still be crucial next season.

“There are no days off,” Arians said. “If I take a day off on Wednesday, I missed half our game plan. Those plays don’t get repeated. We’re going to Thursday football, to Friday football to Saturday, then we play the game.

“We have to respect that process of coming to work every single day, and our guys have really bought in.”

The Cardinals have won 21 games in Arians’ two seasons as head coach, earning NFL Coach of the Year honors and making the playoffs in 2014.

After making the playoffs as a wild card team last season Arians emphasized the importance of winning the NFC West this year.

“We got to win the division,” Arians said. “We played right here in this building for the NFC West championship last year (against Seattle) and didn’t play well. Didn’t show up on either side of the ball. We could make all kinds of excuses about big guys getting hurt, but there are no excuses. We didn’t play well enough.

“Hopefully we taste that, we know we can get back to that point and get the job done. Seattle is still the team to beat. The Rams are getting better every year. Nick Foles is a heck of a quarterback. The Niners scare me because everybody is counting them out and Jim Tomsula is a heck of a coach.”

Arizona opened training camp last Saturday, and went to full pads for the first time Monday.