Arians praises Cards’ staff, players for work in OTAs

Within a couple of weeks of his mid-January hire, Bruce Arians had rounded out his 21-member coaching staff.

He fused together a team of experienced, long-tenured coaches with young, up-and-coming names to create a staff that outnumbered former Arizona Cardinals’ head coach Ken Whisenhunt’s regime by four. Then, Arians said that his staff — one of the largest in the NFL — would take pay cuts in order to up the coach-to-player ratio.

As OTAs resumed on Monday, Arians spoke highly of his staff and the work they’ve done this offseason.

“I’ve been really pleased,” the coach said following Monday’s activities. “The staff has done a phenomenal job, especially in fundamentals and teaching techniques.”

Arians went on to speak to the all-around progress that he has seen his coaches put into effect as the changing-of-the-guard process continues.

“In each phase, at every position, in each group, we’ve got 95 percent of everything installed, both sides of the ball and the kicking game.”

That considered, the coach couldn’t help to reiterate: “I’ve just been really pleased. I can’t say enough good things about this staff.”

But he didn’t limit his praise to his fellow coaches. The players, too, Arians insisted, were right on track.

“This group is way beyond where I thought they’d be right now,” he said, speaking of the names on his roster.

In addition to being generally ahead of schedule with their OTA progress, Arians pointed out the sharpness of his players as they resumed activities after a week off.

“After a week off, I expected it to be a lot sloppier,” he explained. “We had a couple of false starts and offsides, but all in all, I was really pleased with where we picked back up in all phases.”

Thursday will be the final day of Cardinals organized team activities. Next week, non-veterans will participate in a mandatory three-day minicamp.