The Cardinals finished their final full practice of the week today. After that rocky start to the week, with a practice that could have been poor Wednesday because of the rain and the near-flooded field (pictures here) but went, by all accounts, pretty well. The sun came out Thursday (with the IMG fields remarkably dry 24 hours later) and the Cards got in all their necessary work for Sunday’s game against the Bucs.
“The adversity kind of helped make it more focused,” coach Bruce Arians said. “It was something we needed this week.”
We’ll have a “Friday Before” post in a bit, but here are a couple of quick notes:
— S Rashad Johnson was limited in practice today and will be questionable for the game. Arians sure made it sound like he would play, although Johnson said he and the team will still check it out Saturday. He tried to work a cast that would give a couple fingers freedom, but it was determined it wasn’t going to work, so if he does play, he will do so with a big ball cast on his left hand. Arians said he’d be a backup and play special teams.
— Are the Cards ready for the humidity? Sure, Arians said, deadpanning, “I think we had seven IVs yesterday. It was about what we needed.”
— Arians said Wednesday the linebackers would be Matt Shaughnessy and John Abraham and the young guys would fill in behind them. But Arians was a little less detailed Friday talking about who would start at outside linebacker, with heat and weather conditions playing factors as well.
“Depend on the packages,” Arians said. “Todd has a number of different packages. There could be any number of mix and match scenarios.”
