A year ago in training camp when head coach Kliff Kingsbury was in his first year with the Arizona Cardinals, there was tons of talk about the new offense he was going to implement. In his second year as coach, training camp is closed to the public, but his defensive players are talking about one thing about the offense.
They are hyping how fast it operates.
Veteran defensive lineman Jordan Phillips, signed to a three-year contract this offseason, called it “crazy fast.”
“Kliff has them doing stuff that is going to give anybody problems,” Phillips said to reporters after practice on Thursday. “Without giving anything away, it’s just fast. It’s something I’ve never experienced before in training camp and it’s taking some time to get used to it.”
Fellow free agent addition, linebacker De’Vondre Campbell, also has taken notice.
“The biggest challenge is the speed that our offense practices at,” Campbell said after practice this week. “They practice at an extremely high tempo, higher than probably 90 percent of the teams in the NFL.”
Kingsbury wants to play with tempo. However, he is pushing it beyond what will be typical during the season. They are getting calls in quicker this year because it is the second year in the offense. Right now, though, he is pushing the tempo in practice so game speed is slower and so the defenders are better conditioned.
While they are practicing faster than normal, it would appear this will be a staple of the offense — they will try and work quickly to create mismatches, to tire the opposing defense and get more plays in.
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