ARIZONA CARDINALS

Keim Time: Three positives, little else for Cardinals in loss to Texans

Nov 20, 2017, 9:01 AM | Updated: 4:52 pm

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LISTEN: Steve Keim, Cardinals General Manager

The Arizona Cardinals who earned their first big opportunity of the year came through.

The rest of them? It didn’t go as well in a 31-21 loss to the Houston Texans on Sunday.

Cardinals general manager Steve Keim didn’t even want to chat too much about the negatives. He joins Doug & Wolf on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station every Monday morning during the season, and this week, he addressed the three Cardinals who showed well along with some of the problems — an ineffective run game and dropped balls — that continue to burn Arizona.

It’s Keim Time.

What drove you crazy the most?

This is a short segment you guys. I don’t think we have enough time to cover all that. I mean, really, I probably think about the positives first. Really, to me, there were three that jump out: That was Budda Baker, Ricky Seals-Jones and I thought Blaine Gabbert did a nice job. He was decisive, got the ball out quick, I thought for the most part he was accurate. I think he finished almost at 64-, 65-percent completion percentage, which to me is very, very good, especially when you count the amount of drops that he incurred.

But all three of those guys stepped up when the lights came on. To me, as a general manager, that’s what you look for at this time of the year — when guys have their opportunity, they take advantage of it.

How did Blaine Gabbert handle the offense?

Excellent.

The checks, of course, and the calls? So he did well?

Yep, everything from what I gathered after the game from Bruce, (he) was extremely poised and confident and ran the huddle extremely well. To me, he looked a little bit like he looked in the preseason, which he showed very good flashes. Again, he looks comfortable in this offense, I thought he looked poised in the pocket, especially when you consider the fact that …  really we had to be one-dimensional because of our inability to run the football.

When you combine all those things with the drops, again, I thought he played very good and certainly is a guy that’s exciting moving forward.

Going forward, of course, and when you have conversations with Bruce Arians about the quarterback position, do you weigh in on this stuff at all or is this strictly going to be Bruce Arians (making the decisions) going forward? Or is it a conversation?

It’s predominantly a coaching decision, but I certainly have the time and that sort of thing with Bruce where we have conversations at every position, not just the quarterback position. We talk through different scenarios and that sort of thing — it usually starts with guys being healthy. For the most part, we’ll talk it through and it’ll be a team decision.

You mentioned the inability to run the football. It’s kind of a weird scenario where you’re either getting 120 yards per game out of Adrian Peterson or 20 yards per game out of Adrian Peterson. What do you attribute to the wild swings in production to the running game?

I think some of it is a combination of just getting your tail whipped at the point of attack, and some of it is the fundamentals: combination blocks, not coming off and blocking the second-level defender, tight ends sustaining their blocks on the edges. I thought yesterday our tight ends were extremely poor at the point of attack. Again, when you have combination blocks, you don’t come off to the linebackers who are playing extremely tight in the box, it’s going to give you a tough time in the run game against anybody.

That’s disappointing to me that it’s this point in the season and we haven’t cleaned some of that stuff up. We have to do whatever we can to figure out how we can run the football more effectively, because again, when you become one-dimensional, it puts more pressure on you as protectors and then … in the passing game, you got to make plays. And aside from Larry Fitzgerald yesterday (and) Ricky Seals-Jones, it’s really disappointing to see some of those guys letting us down.

What do you know about Drew Stanton right now and his condition and his prognosis going forward here?

He was our backup last week, as you guys know, and I know he healed much quicker than anybody even anticipated. Certainly have to protect him moving forward and making sure we don’t put him in harm’s way, but Drew’s a tough guy, he’s a quick healer. I’ll meet with (trainer) Tom Reed this morning and the medical staff and find out where he’s at.

This is something interesting that Bruce Arians said yesterday to AZCardinals.com: 

Arians: “We’ll be looking at some different receivers next week.”

Does that start today? Your frustration over wide receiver dropped balls, what can you do about it as general manager right now?

Yeah, we’ve been looking at wide receivers in a lot of different scenarios, whether it’s guys on practice squads that we could potentially poach or it’s guys that are off the street. Either way, we have to try to do the best we can to put some players on the field that are going to make the plays when given an opportunity. Again, to see three different guys have their first real opportunity yesterday, in Budda’s first start and Ricky Seals-Jones and Blaine having the opportunity, to me, that’s what’s rewarding is seeing guys like that have some success.

At the same time, we have some other receivers who have done a lot of other things for us in the past and for one reason or another, those guys aren’t stepping up and answering the bell. That’s what’s disappointing to me. We’ll continue to try to put the best players out there that we can.

Steve, Budda Baker, you talked a little bit about Budda Baker, but try to project him. What do you see from Budda Baker in a year from now?

I just think he’s going to get better with more football that he plays at this level. The guy is fun to watch, when you watch the film, as I did this morning, early. He plays at a different speed than a lot of the other guys on the field. He’s so twitchy and explosive. He’s a phenomenal tackler for his size. He’s very physical and does a fantastic job in coverage. You know, he had some plays on the ball yesterday where he was covering tight ends. Just the ground that he covers when he closes on the football, to me, is exceptional.

What did you think of Bruce Arians’ decision to go for it on fourth down?

You know, I have a lot of faith in Coach. I know that some people may point to the fact that that cost us the game, and I see it a little differently. He’s already addressed that situation. But Bruce didn’t drop six balls or miss 10 tackles or get dominated at the point of attack. Until we clean up those other things, those sort of decisions that Bruce made, which was key in the game, are going to really be irrelevant.

Were you disappointed with the play of the offensive line even though you know the Texans have a very good front seven?

I thought they protected — I thought the protection was average in pass protection. There was some leakage. For the most part, yeah, I am disappointed because we didn’t sustain blocks, again, we didn’t come off to the second level and we didn’t give our running back a chance. Again, being one-dimensional and not playing with any balance can really make it difficult on your offense, and that’s the kind of team we’ve been lately. And it’s just got to change.

On one negative standpoint, you’re only two games above a team like the New York Giants, but on a positive standpoint, you win three straight home games, heck, you’re 7-6 in a crazy NFC, who knows what can happen next? Do you look at it and say, hey, I get Carson (Palmer) back, I get David Johnson back, 2018, the window’s open, here we go? Or are you already thinking it might be time to tear this down and rebuild it?

I’m looking at every scenario. It’s one of those things where I’m looking at players right now that are on practice squads with other teams that could potentially help us, not only this year but moving forward. This afternoon I’ll spend more time on college choices that are going to be in the 2018 draft. I’m constantly looking at — not only today — but I’m looking at the future, whether it’s ’18, ’19 from a cap perspective. You know, that’s something that I have to do every day.

Coaches and players, they’re on a week-to-week basis. Part of my job is making sure that we can try to have some sustainable success.

We were talking a little bit earlier this morning about some of these decisions that might be out there for you to make moving forward, like guys on IR and who you might activate and bring back off IR. Maybe you’re going to play Ricky Seals-Jones a lot more, and are you going to play D.J. Foster more? At 4-6 right now, is that a situation where you are going to make decisions based on what the future is as opposed to actually this season in 2017?

I mean, I think it’s a combination. When you look at the way Seals-Jones played yesterday, having his opportunity, if other guys aren’t getting it done, why not give other guys opportunity because they may succeed? In that situation, now we feel comfortable that Ricky Seals(-Jones) can handle a little more on his plate and can potentially make plays moving forward. Not only did you give a guy an opportunity because other guys aren’t stepping up and answering the bell, you’re giving a guy a chance to earn some confidence.

I know there were three (players) yesterday that got us excited.

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