All-Access with Bruce Arians: It was like déjà vu from St. Louis
Oct 19, 2015, 3:04 PM | Updated: 5:08 pm
Arizona Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians walks off the field after an NFL football game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Pittsburgh, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2015. The Steelers won 25-13. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
In this space we will highlight some of what Arians had to say, and Monday he talked about his team following a 25-13 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
He started with an opening statement:
“Again, like I said yesterday, when you watch the tape, there’s nothing different from what you saw on the field. Same scenarios, and it was like déjà vu from St. Louis. Dropped interception, jump offsides and give them a free play; offensively, miscommunication on the red zone plays when we’re wide open and either get pressured, or don’t throw a hot and not communicate it. So both of those games, they’re identical. It was us beating us. Give credit to Landry Jones. He came in and did a heck of a job for a young guy who has never played, but we didn’t knock him down either. We let him get comfortable, but he made the plays. We’ll learn from it. It’s not the end of the world, but you learn from it. We had the opportunity to do something special, win two on the road. We can still do that and we’ll move on and learn from it. I like the way our football team has been resilient and bounced back so far this year.”
On Darren Fells’ injury status:
“We know it’s some form of a strain. He’s getting the MRI and it’s not come back. There’s nothing broken, but we don’t know the extent of it yet. He was the only injury as far as potential time missing.”
On whether he’s worried about the team believing that it can perform well in the fourth quarter after that was a strong suit last season:
“Well, you have to do it to believe it. You are what you put on tape. The two ball games, as poorly as we’ve played, we had opportunities to win them at the end and we didn’t make the plays to do it. You have to do it. Each team is different, so this year, we’ve got to wait and see.”
On whether the problem is a lack of focus:
“No. It’s execution. It’s execution. There was no excuse for execution and communication errors at home. On the road, it’s a little bit harder to hear, especially there. But that’s why we have hand signals and other things, but we have to be on the same page, especially in the red zone.”
On whether it’s concerning or frustrating to be making communication errors in Week 6:
“I’ve seen them in Week 14 and still go to the playoffs. They happen, but it’s still easily correctable.”
On what led to the disparity between passing and running play calls:
“Second and about 20 about three times with penalties, and then you’re not in a position to run the ball much. We did run it on third down and got stopped. Then we ran it down in the red zone and had a negative play, but we were throwing it so well, we didn’t need to run it. It’s just those second-and-longs after penalties.”
On how the loss of Fells affected the run game yesterday and the impact it could have going forward:
“It’s just an opportunity for Jermaine (Gresham) and Troy (Niklas). Troy is more than capable. It’s just their opportunities now, but Darren was playing pretty well. He did drop a big pass but that’ll happen.”
On Markus Golden’s play:
“Markus played hard. He can play much smarter, but he did play hard. He had one big penalty when he hit the quarterback too high, and that was a huge one.”
On the play where Michael Floyd’s jersey was pulled in the end zone:
“I don’t think anybody else missed it in the stadium, other than the two guys with the striped shirts on.”
On whether Pittsburgh did anything different with Landry Jones that they didn’t expect:
“No. They got Martavis (Bryant) more involved and our guys didn’t see him on tape. They weren’t quite sure what he was going to do and where they were going to use him at. Their route combinations were pretty much the same.”
On if Arizona’s defense let down at all after Michael Vick left the game:
“We just didn’t get to the quarterback, and he made some throws. We turned the ball over down there, and so far, this team has come out and stopped people. In the two losses, after turnovers, they got touchdowns on 3rd-and-8s, and we didn’t make a play in the red zone to get them off the field or get a field goal. That’s the biggest difference in the two ball games too.”
On what happened in allowing the long touchdown pass:
“Again, communication. We should have tighter coverage on the slant, and something we just addressed.”
On the play of Dwight Freeney:
“Dwight played 20 plays. He got one hit. He played pretty hard and I think he only had one mental error, so that part of it should get better.”
On the correlation between forcing turnovers and winning ball games:
“That’s about 80 percent. When you go three turnovers and no takeaways, you lose about 80 to 88 percent of the time. It’s just the history of the game.”
On how he would rate Carson Palmer’s game:
“Average to poor. He made a lot of throws and we made a lot of catches, but we didn’t execute very well inside the 20-yard line.”
On whether Andre Ellington’s role during yesterday’s game was due to the game flow:
“Yeah, because he’s not our nickel back right now. He had a passing game role and got the big, long play for us. We just didn’t run the ball that much in the second half and he’s not our nickel back.”
