Until training camp begins and his players start competing in pads, Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt knows he must reserve judgment on most of the rookies and newcomers.
But on Wednesday he wasn't bashful about complimenting the team as a whole for gaining a firmer grip on the playbook and schemes on both sides of the ball.
"We're doing a lot of things this year we couldn't even think about doing last year,"
Whisenhunt said. "The checks at the line, package plays where we call two plays at the huddle and run a certain one based on the defense."
"Everything is so much better, including the communication with our defense. Blitz packages, moving around, hitting the holes on blitzes. We're so much further along because we've been in the system for a year."
Early last season, during his first year in charge, Whisenhunt acknowledged that he had to scale back the playbook because players were making many mistakes. Whisenhunt added that he probably included too much information.
"Whenever you start your first year with a program, you want to try and put as much stuff in as you can and see what you do well,"
Whisenhunt said. "That takes some time."
A year later, it's going so well that Whisenhunt likely will add several more pages to the playbook.
"We're already doing more things, but some of it is off our base things,"
he said. "We're doing it a lot better, though, so I think it's going to allow us to have a bigger playbook."
"The one thing we did was when we did scale it back, we built off of that. I'm excited to see where we can go with it."
Gaining ground
With Pro Bowl wide receivers Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald, the Cardinals will continue to be a passing-oriented team.
But don't forget about the running game, which Whisenhunt said will be much improved.
He credited assistant head coach/offensive line Russ Grimm for taking extra time to work with the linemen during volunteer workouts at the team's Tempe training facility.
The linemen are working on picking up defensive stunts, tactical pulling and fortifying their zone blocks in power-package situations.
"He's working these guys very hard,"
Whisenhunt said, "and you can see the results out there. I think that bodes well for our running game next season."
Extra points
The Cardinals spent part of Wednesday's workouts practicing their two-minute offense.
"It was a little bit of a jumbled mess at times,"
Whisenhunt said, "but it always is when you first put that in, because guys are thinking too much. We'll get a chance to go through it again next week and hopefully it'll be a little sharper."
• One thing Whisenhunt is happy about is the tempo and intensity during workouts. "From a competitive aspect, you hear a lot of the guys bantering back and forth, which is a good thing,"
he said. "There's been a couple skirmishes here and there, but when guys start competing, that's a part of it. The big thing is we don't play the Cardinals this year, so we need to keep that in mind."
• Several football coaches from the University of Arizona asked to view Wednesday's session, and Whisenhunt said he always will be a gracious host when it comes to that. "Especially for schools like Arizona State, Arizona and NAU, our local schools,"
he said. "I think it's great for them to come out here and have that interaction. At times, they have good football players and we need things from them, too, so it's a good exchange."
