New era notes: Jonathan Gannon puts his ‘non-negotiable’ fighting rule into effect
Jul 29, 2023, 8:04 PM | Updated: Aug 3, 2023, 11:19 pm
GLENDALE — Arizona Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon has preached team football since Day 1 on the job.
That includes playing for the guy next to you and not jeopardizing team success due to individual actions.
Fighting, which Gannon called “non-negotiable” as training camp kicked off this week, being one of them.
It’s a distraction at camp and a penalty in the regular season and something that won’t be tolerated, as seen on Saturday.
With around 20 minutes left to go in Day 4 of camp, linemen L.J. Collier and Dennis Daley got into a shoving match during 11-on-11s.
Almost instantly, Gannon was there to break things up, talking to both players before sending them to the locker room. Running back James Conner also got an assist for trying to cool down Daley.
Example made.
Noah Togiai has a day
When thinking Cardinals tight ends room, two names typically come to mind in Zach Ertz and Trey McBride.
But on Saturday, it was Togiai leading the charge for the big-bodied pass catchers.
Not known for his receiving ability — zero catches across seven career games — the tight end flashed his hands throughout Day 4 of camp.
#AZCardinals TE Noah Togiai had an impressive Day 4 of training camp on Saturday. pic.twitter.com/utMbqlTksa
— Tyler Drake (@Tdrake4sports) July 29, 2023
Togiai has gotten more run with the first team over the past few days with McBride nicked up. Next to him in 12 personnel is Geoff Swaim, a new addition who looks to be already cementing a role in this offense.
McCoy back to throwing
Speaking of Colt McCoy, the QB was back throwing on Saturday after not attempting a pass the day prior.
It’s all part of the “protocol” as Gannon put that the team has in place with the veteran signal caller.
One of his targets in McBride, however, was again mainly watching from the sideline for a second day in a row.
“We’re just being careful with him,” Gannon said. “He’s got his own plan that he’s going through right now. A little bit of a nick, but he’s OK.”
The team is also still sorting through linebacker Myjai Sanders’ hand issue suffered Wednesday.
Picking up where they left off
Nearly a week into training camp, how does Gannon feel about his team’s overall retention of the playbook and everything else that is being asked of them?
Pretty darn good if you ask the head coach.
“I told the team I know we can compete and I know we care,” Gannon said. “What I mean by that is when I came back, I think we pretty much picked up where we left off after those five and a half weeks.”
“I thought they’ve done a really good job in how we structured the installs. … We put a lot of pressure on them and they did a good job with it.”
