GLENDALE — Trey McBride is a captain now. Mike LaFleur, the Arizona Cardinals’ offensive coordinator, told the team on Wednesday, and McBride earned it.
“He’s a stud and he deserves that captain,” LaFleur said Friday. “What he does for this locker room and behind the scenes, you know, he’s a stud.”
LaFleur said McBride was very close from a vote standpoint back in August, when the Cardinals did it in early September. With Jacoby Brissett no longer here, the time was right.
“I told him he was very close from a vote standpoint,” LaFleur said. “It just felt right, you know. Trey deserves this, and the guys look up to him because of one, the way he acts, but two, the way he plays.”
Every single day, McBride puts in the work, and the guys see it. The way he plays on Sunday is how he practices, too.
“He practices the right way, he practices like he wants to be the best in the world,” LaFleur said. “The second thing that is awesome about any leader, but any person in general, he is himself. He’s not trying to be anyone that he’s not, and he just loves this game, he loves that locker room, and he loves doing what he can do for this organization.”
Carson Beck starts Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams, and LaFleur said the rookie stays even. Watching his tape from Georgia and Miami, Beck doesn’t get too high or too low, in the meeting room or out there, and he doesn’t make it any harder than it needs to be in the film room.
“Sometimes us as coaches, we can start to overcomplicate,” LaFleur said. “He’s a very easy guy to work with.”
The Cardinals have continuity to lean on. Beck and the receivers have worked together a lot over the last few weeks, showing the defense the opposing offenses, so they’ve had good work together with the Cardinals’ own plays. The challenge is communication — making the call, making sure everyone’s on the same page, sometimes non-verbally, back to the quarterback and running back, just to make sure nobody gets cut loose.
On injuries, LaFleur said Fro will be out, and John Gaines will be out. Bam Knight has no designation — something just popped up from practice, and the Cardinals will know more today, tomorrow and Sunday.
Game planning, LaFleur said, comes down to three things: stick to your foundations, stick to what your guys can do, and does it make sense against the defense you’re going against. There’s a fine line, he said, because some of these guys haven’t played a lot of football on Sundays yet.
“We don’t want to outsmart ourselves or out-trick ourselves,” LaFleur said. “There’s a delicate balance, and that’s part of our job, is to figure that out.”
What LaFleur is excited about is the growth — to see these guys grow as they go, the incredible learning experiences, and take it from there. The Cardinals didn’t use a wristband during training camp on purpose, to challenge the quarterbacks, and Beck was really good with it through OTAs, July and August. It won’t be a full change just yet, but as he gets more comfortable, they’ll wean themselves out of it.
© Old Town News Scottsdale — oldtownnews.us
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