Arizona Cardinals defense adjusting on the fly

Aug 26, 2011, 9:33 PM | Updated: 10:51 pm

This offseason the Cardinals hired Ray Horton to be their defensive coordinator, but with only two preseason games left the players admit they’re still learning.

“We’ve got the grit of it,” safety Kerry Rhodes told azcardinals.com’s Darren Urban. “We’ve got the base stuff, and some of the exotic stuff. But we don’t have everything in.”

To be fair, everyone on the defense is still brand new to the system because the NFL lockout prevented coaches to have contact with their players. That left only one month for players to learn a new system before the regular season starts.

The Cardinals defensive players have had just over three weeks to learn Horton’s system, and Rhodes believes they’ll still be learning things up to the regular season opener.

“It’s like a cram session,” Rhodes said. “Cram for the test, and hopefully that first test against Carolina, we pass with flying colors.”

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