Dealing Cards: Dealing with Thursday Night Football, suspensions avoided

TEMPE, Ariz. – Whatever concerns, issues and overall aversions the Arizona Cardinals may have with the NFL playing games on Thursday nights, head coach Bruce Arians wanted to hear none of it on Monday.

The schedule is what it is, and it’s been known for months now that the Cardinals will host the Seattle Seahawks on Nov. 9, just four short days after playing in San Francisco.

Arians addressed the topic before reporters could.

“Everybody knows Thursday Night Football is a reality, so you deal with it; and I think we’ve had a good plan the last few years of how to get prepared to play these games,” he said.

Arians has often talked about sports science, and this is the week when sports science is relied on the most. It’s an area the Cardinals have invested in heavily over the years. Team president Michael Bidwill has made sure strength and conditioning coach Buddy Morris and his staff have all that they need, including state-of-the-art equipment, to best prepare the players for the long season.

“Our training staff has everything mapped out for what we need to do,” quarterback Drew Stanton. “We’ve got everything at our disposal, which is a luxury to have, that ownership takes that much pride in trying to help the players recover.”

The Cardinals held a walk-through on Monday. Anything more would’ve been too much to ask less than 24 hours from beating the 49ers. Walk-throughs are once again on the schedule for Tuesday and Wednesday leading up to the primetime showdown.

Every player participated in the walk-through, which is good news considering the number of snaps some played the day before. Safety Tyrann Mathieu was on the field the most, a total of 87 snaps. Six other players hit the 80-snap mark when adding their work on special teams.

“I’m sore. I’m sore as hell,” said left tackle D.J. Humphries, who played all 77 offensive snaps and then another five on special teams. “I’m going to be fine, though. I’m 23. You should ask the older guys how they feel. Pretty sure that’s the real tell. I’ll be fine in a couple of days.”

Recovering as quickly as possible requires doing the little things, according to wide receiver Jaron Brown.

“Cold tub, ice tub, and massages. But, yeah, we’ll be ready to play,” he said.

Ready, yes. Happy about playing Thursday, no.

“I’m not a big fan of it,” safety Antoine Bethea said. “The type of game we play— shoot, normally we don’t start feeling good until Thursday, so yeah, I’m not really a big fan of the Thursday game.”

Reddick, Rucker avoid suspension

On Monday, the NFL suspended Tampa Bay wide receiver Mike Evans one game, without pay, for his blindside hit on linebacker Marshon Lattimore, which led to a sideline scuffle in the game against New Orleans on Sunday.

It was one of three altercations in Week 9, including one involving the Cardinals and 49ers, yet the only one apparently the league deemed to have violated its unsportsmanlike conduct and unnecessary roughness rules.

In other words, the Cardinals will have a full roster at their disposal this week.

“I would imagine fines,” Arians said, referring to any fallout from the ejections of linebacker Haason Reddick and defensive lineman Frostee Rucker.

“With the rules put in place last year, any kind of suspension would have had to have already taken place because we play Thursday night. You would suspend a guy on a Monday, appeal it on a Tuesday and be able to make a roster move on a Wednesday. Well, we would have needed to know that right now.”

Reddick and Rucker, along with San Francisco running back Carlos Hyde, watched the final 3:36 of Sunday’s game from their respective locker rooms.

It was Bethea’s hit on quarterback C.J. Beathard that triggered the fight between the two teams.

“You don’t know when he’s going to slide, that’s the hard thing about it. You have some quarterbacks, like the quarterback we’re facing on Thursday—he’s a very capable runner, he can take it the distance—so as a defender, sometimes you get stuck in those positions where, ‘OK, what do I do? Do I stand there like a duck, or whatever the case may be?’ And you got to protect yourself as well. It’s tough,” Bethea said.

“But you know how football is; the guys are fast, strong. A lot of times it’s just a bang-bang play. Obviously, I’m not trying to hurt anybody out there, but it is what it is.”

Game balls handed out

In talking about the blocking upfront that allowed running back Adrian Peterson to rush for 159 yards on a career-high/franchise-high 37 carries, Arians mentioned all five offensive linemen plus tight ends Jermaine Gresham and Troy Niklas earned game balls.

Safety Budda Baker and punter Andy Lee also were rewarded with game balls for their play. Baker had three special teams tackles, all in the first quarter.

And of course, linebacker Karlos Dansby got one, too, for becoming only the fifth player in NFL history with 40+ sacks and 20+ interceptions in their career.

“The ball, jersey, shoes, gloves, all of it is getting framed,” he said. “I had this goal a long time ago, when I first came in the league, is to try to get the gold jacket. I’m one step closer, man. I don’t know what else I have to do.”

Roster moves

The Cardinals signed center Max Tuerk from the Los Angeles Chargers practice squad and placed center Daniel Munyer (toe) on injured reserve.

The team also made a change to its practice squad, swapping out tackles. They signed Storm Norton and released Javarius Leamon.

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