 Coach Farrell Cooper, how dangerous of a returner is he for the Cardinals? Well, it's very dangerous. They just signed him to the 53-man roster. He's a bigger returner, around 5'11", 200 pounds. He can run through arm tackles. A fearless returner. He could get east-west and he could get vertical at the football with one cut. Right now he's been a spark for them in the return game. I know last week versus Tampa Bay, a couple of decent returns and right now he's averaging over a first down per return upon return of 14.3 yards of return. It's going to be a great challenge for us, making sure that we can get bodies on them, make sure we step to contact and we're able to bring him down when we go to tackle him. Because he is a physical runner. What worked on that 28 yarder that they busted last week? Big returns happen in NFL because of two things. Lost leverage and missed tackles. Before the ball is punted, there's about five, five and a half guys on each side of football, even just like on kickoff. When you see big returns happen, whether it's kickoff returns or punt returns in NFL, if you pause the tape, you usually see two guys to the left, eight to nine guys to the other side of the football. So lost leverage on the football and then missed tackles as well. Give credit to Arizona. They have a great special teams unit, starting with the coordinator, Jeff Rogers. They do a good job displacing guys and making guys lose leverage on the football to give their returner room to work with and get vertical with the football. Was you able to get your hands back on Bernie hard a little bit more now? Will you try to look and see if he can help you at any spot? Right now, you know, we're happy to have them back out on the practice field. Again, we're still just getting them back acclimated to the game. You know, whatever the best 53 that we get are 48 on game day. We'll put the best 40 out there. But again, he's continued to get better. He's been out there catching balls and working on special teams as well as offense. And he's shown improvement just in one day getting them back on the field. So we're very happy and blessed to have them back. The season started. You were pretty optimistic about his potential as a special teams player down the road. Have you been able to determine much about that given that he's been on our? I mean, he had a lot of reps, whether it was in practice. And I know he had very limited, maybe one or two reps on special teams. But he had a lot of reps and he put a lot of reps in the bank during training camp, during OTAs, and even when he was before he won on IR. So we have a good idea of where positions that he can play and we know the positions that he can play. And then if he is provided with the opportunity, we know that he'll be able to help us come that given that opportunity on Sunday or Sundays down the road. Well, every decision you make in these last two games to be based on the best player for that particular moment in the game or might you look at whether it's Bernhardt or anybody else, I just want to see this guy in a game rep here. It's the best guys. It doesn't matter. And going back, it doesn't matter our record. It doesn't matter if we're not able to get into the playoffs. We're playing the best eleven guys. Our job, my job as a special teams coordinator is to make sure that we're able to win that down. We're not guaranteed a second, third or fourth down, you know, the next down on special teams. So we're going to put the best eleven guys out there and our mindset is how can we win that down to help our offense and defense out so we can win that game. And we're always evaluating, even if we're playing the best eleven guys out there. We're putting the best guys out there that can help us win that game. So we're not in that, I don't know if you're trying to get to the question like, hey, are we just going to start evaluating guys or just putting guys out there just to look at them. We're not in that right now. We're playing the best guys and we're trying to win this game versus Arizona and win a home game. That's all that matters. Bradley Pinion, over the course of the year, what kind of asset has he been for you guys? I'm just looking at the numbers now. He's only had two touch backs all year. His net is second highest in his career. How has he been and how has he fit into what you guys like to do? He's been a great acquisition for us. Very blessed to have him when it comes to his strong leg and the best way to say it. His overall experience as a special teams player and he's been great for Koo. He's been great for Liam. He's been great for our core players. We talk about Mike Ford, Hodge, Troy, Eric. He's been a leader in the room and in our room we have multiple leaders. We talk about leaders building and creating other leaders in the room and he's helped with that process. Very blessed to have him when it comes to his ability to hit touch backs when needed, be able to cover kicks when needed, directional punts when needed. Last week, you know, I love his resiliency because last week the wind was crazy at that stadium and we had to do a better job of just keeping leverage on the football where we talk about not trying to give up big returns and our coverage guys did a great job having Bradley's back when we came to those windy conditions and he continues to get better each and every week. So we're very excited and I'm very excited to see him, you know, go out there and put out his best performance of the year come Sunday. Are you surprised that Matt Prater's still kicking around pretty good for the Cardinals at 38? He said, am I surprised? No. Age is nothing but a number. He's been doing it for a long time. I was actually with him in 2020 season, end of the year where he broke the record for most 50-yard field goals made in the career and right now he's at 70 and he has a strong leg, he has great hang time on his kickoffs. He's still good from 65-plus when it comes to field goals so we have our hands full when it comes to him because he could do a lot of different things and he's a great leader and I know he's a great leader in that locker room because he was for us in Detroit. He was here and had problems early on but eventually settled down. You see that with some of the kickers, some that we've seen over time. I'm a firm believer that you never get put in positions that you can't handle. I think things that happen in life only makes you stronger. You look at things as blessings or lessons and you can see with his career along with Ku those things were lessons and at the same time blessings for them and now that's why Matt's having a career that he's had so far in the NFL and his best days are still yet to come. Again, I'm very happy for him. It's going to be a great challenge this weekend going against Matt and Arizona Cardinals Special Teams units. Anything special about Lee, the partner? He has great directional ability. He's been doing it what for 19 years. He's won the better directional punters in the NFL. He does a good job getting the ball off, getting up and through the football to force hang time and they've played a lot of different gunners out there on punt and with having a lot of different combinations at the gunner position for him to still go out there and be able to flip the field or pin guys inside to 20 is very impressive. So it's going to be really fun going against Andy this weekend and their units. Field goal. You guys have made positive take points off the board plays at a couple different or added points to go back to the Rams game. What's kind of been key to y'all making those big plays at different points during the field? In our room, we talk about great plays and made from great effort. In the NFL, when you come talk about specialist operation and punt protection, field goal protection, there's a lot of great protections or a lot of great operations and the key thing for us is each and every down we make that down count rather than count those plays. We make those plays count. So you never know when that opportunity is going to present itself whether it's Troy blocking one versus the Rams and Adé blocking one this past week versus Baltimore. You never know. So every time we get lined up if we're tied to the line of scrimmage, it's our job to win early in that down. You never see a guy get pancake and then make a sack, right? You don't really see that. So how can we win early in the down? It's based on our basic fundamentals. Pad level stands or eyes or get off of the line of sight, violence with our upper body and then understanding the rush plan and what we're trying to do. Sometimes you look at the field goal block, that was designed for Adé to block it. So D'Angelo does a great job knocking back the end. You have Abdullah and you have Horn making certain movements that free up Adé in that look. So the guys being selfless in those positions to understand, hey, I might not get this block, but I'm a part of it. And that's what it's all about. And then we talk about in the room again, I love our room that what we have in there from top to bottom, because everybody helps us on special teams. We talk about from the quarterback all the way down to the D line and O line and every single guy, when they go out there, they understand that it's a one play mentality and we got to make the most out of that play and it all starts with our effort, our attitude and our technique. Coach, what are some of the things that I want to see from Desmond in his third game? Sure. Yeah, I think each game you go out there, right? You get new experiences. So for him, the first two were on the road, great environments, great defenses, a great test this week with Coach Joseph and what he presents in terms of all the different pressure packages, fronts and coverages. He's at home for the first time. But like I've said before, no different than his first start to his second start. He is one of 11, right? And the rest of those guys going out there, it's another time for him to be in the huddle in different environments with different guys and reacting to what he sees. And that's really what you want to see from all guys, young, experienced. You want to see in certain situations like, will they trust their training? Will they trust their fundamentals? Trust their eyes. And again, it's always the evaluation, regardless of where you are in the season, no different than this week. In slow starts, he's going on the third drive, the first game and the fifth drive, the second game, anything you all can do to... Yeah, I mean that's, you know, as you see, right, you pointed out, it's not the goal to start that way. And so for us, right, you're always constantly trying to establish your rhythm. You're trying to attack a certain way. But for us, it's about making sure we go out there confident, understanding what we potentially might get, and then reacting to what, if it's not what we thought we're going to get, and then trust your training. So for us, there is a get out there, play fast, start fast mentality. But again, right, the defense obviously has a say in it, and we have to be able to adjust. I think guys have adjusted as the game has gone on in the last couple of weeks. We obviously need to start faster than that, though. How has his progression been all season? Are you all happy with the production? Yeah, I think when you talk about him or any of the young players, right, if you look at, you got Drake London, you got Des, and Al Jir here. You got three young players in their first year as other guys that we count on. But with Al Jir, right, he's had a consistent growth pattern in terms of how he plays and how he approaches it. And I've said this about all young guys. There's a physical part of this, there's no doubt. But you want to see their mental, how they prepare during a course of a long season, right? This is the longest they played football. So there's also part of that, understanding there is a certain mentality it takes to get through all these weeks. And with all our young guys, preparing them, they're going out. We just had a walk-through, they're locked in. And so we expect no different for the following couple weeks. With Drew Dalman, from the mental aspect that calls and checks and all the assignments that Senator has to do, how have you seen him? Yeah, same thing. You know, you see it week by week in terms of his ability to be comfortable. Specifically now with the new quarterback, there's different communication lines. And for us, there's a constant with the other lineman that he plays with. He's had other guys play next to him at left guard. And for him to be able to constantly communicate, there is a comfort level with him at this point about going out there, understanding what he's seeing. And every time there's something new, just like all our players, regardless of age, they're great communicators back to the coaches. And so it allows us as coaches to make adjustments with them. I think sometimes when it's one-sided and only the coach sees it and the player doesn't, I think sometimes it's hard for the player to understand where you want to go with it. When you have that equal communication, I think that ultimately allows you to be the best adjuster as a game moves on. And that's ultimately what football is in the NFL level. It's a game of adjustments. So the faster you can make an adjustment, stay one step ahead or fix your issue, usually the better off you are. And that's been a constant thing for us as we evolve this season. The quarterback center industry, I don't know, does it take time for that to be built or how have you seen Dez and Drew work together to get in the right? I think it's different for different quarterback center combinations. I think what helped us is they've obviously been together since OTA's training camp. We rotate the centers. There was a competition. So none of that was really in the thought process of is there going to be an issue there? There was a comfort level and just no different than the other guys hearing Dez's cadence. As much as you want to mimic everybody's cadence as the quarterbacks all speak the same way, the reality is they all have different cadences and tones. So that's been another part of the process and each week it gets better. How have you seen, made the transition from defense to offense? How have you seen like his progression over the course? Yeah, that's a good question. With Avery, you know, he's played nickel. He's a returner. Now he's playing offense. He's a football player. And so our task as coaches is to make sure that we get guys involved in putting them in the best position. Avery is no different than any other player that we have in the offensive skill set. He has a certain skill set. But more importantly, he understands football. And I know that sounds pretty simple and you would think everybody at the NFL level would understand football. It's not always the case. And I think you just have guys who have a natural feel when the pitcher changes. Some guys go to the classroom and they see it exactly the way you told them and then you go to the practice field and if it's that way, awesome. But the reality is it's probably not going to be that way sometimes because they're going to do something that's not, has been seen or it's a one-off. And the guys who, when the pitcher changes can still problem solve, then you really have a guy who understands football. And I think Avery, along with other guys, young and old on our roster, they have that capability. When you have guys that don't, typically that's when you hear the expression that a guy lacks football awareness. Those sometimes, you can play with those guys, but there's issues when the pitcher changes and if the pitcher changes on guys, you have to be okay with the inconsistency of it. When it comes to Drake and the fumbles, where do you balance coaching and emphasizing it versus not drilling into his head so much that it's a thing? Right. With any, you can go through any kind of turnover. I mean, there's usually a reason, a variable or a why. Quarterback, interception, a fumble. And more times than not, you can trace them back to fundamentals, intent. Or there is the unknown variable where a play just happens by the defense, right? A tip, right? You had the ball secure and that guy's just stronger. They have you up and they just rip it, right? And fundamentals can only take you so far when it's outmatched at times. In terms of all those, we go back to the same thought process. Understand the most important thing when you have that ball in your possession is the ball. He is the first person who would raise his hand or anybody like a quarterback who throws in interception is the first one who feels it first. They understand the issue. But you love the intent of all our players when something that doesn't go right happens. You want to see reaction. So for him, right, we'll use him as an example. Earlier in that game, right, that occurs on a fourth and two. Since that point in that game, you want to see how a player responds. You can tell a player, hey, forget about it, let's go. Right? But at the end of the day, that player has to have enough self-talk to understand our mental toughness and the recognition of it. There's a lot of them out there. That's one of them. How they react, not just by word, but by action when something occurs that obviously was negative. And Drake, I thought, just like a lot of our players this year, have reacted in a positive way. And guys around them have supported them more importantly. And that's when you truly have a supportive team. You don't have him just being cast off or other guys just being casted off into themselves. You've got guys constantly there to pick each other up. But you also need to pick yourself up. And there's an old saying I was taught as a player from a coach who'd been in a league for a long time. It's one thing as a coach to believe in somebody. The reality is that player needs to believe in himself first. And that goes for anything, right? Just like those situations. But again, you always want it just like a coach, right? We make a bad decision. We have to respond. We can't sulk in it. We can't think about it. Otherwise, the next play is going to be an issue. And so that's from a young mindset or a middle-aged veteran to a guy who's 10 years plus, you want to see how they respond. Why is that mechanic seven? Are you comfortable with those? What's where he is there? Yeah, I think it's one of those things where you go out each day. You see the fundamental work they put in. You see the drill work. Again, there's nothing that ever replaces that. So the reputation of doing something over and over and over, right, ultimately is how you gain confidence. Doing something one-off and having some success probably is not sustainable. But doing something as remedial and as fundamental from a receiver as catching it and tucking it and protecting it or a quarterback, making sure he sees in front of his throw, as fundamental as that sounds, the act of doing it and not getting bored by doing it over and over and over and having a really large capacity for boredom. Because ultimately, great players in this level, the ones that sustain are fundamentally usually really sound, but they always go back to the basic fundamentals, right? I used to love watching the YouTube videos of the Kobe Bryant things and all that. And he would even talk about the fact of going back to the simplest move every single day and perfecting it. And so that's been part of our mantra, the way we go forward with the fundamentals. You've heard me say it now for two years. There is no substitute. So that's how basically we have approached it. I was watching Texas Tech and Ole Miss in whatever bowl it was last night. Could you name the bowl delay? No, I can't. I could. I'm looking up here quick. But the kid breaks free again and six comes up from the back. So it's easy. He was supposed to hold it tight. But in drinks, he had it tight. It looked like Marlon just comes in, gets a windmill. And that's what I said sometimes, right? You get a situation where a player makes a great play. You're taking anything away from what Humphrey did in that play. I'm also saying, right, you want to control. You're still controllables in that situation. Dre goes in, right? There's certain things that we teach just like all players. It's not just him as a ball carrier. Anybody who possesses the ball, there's certain techniques and fundamentals that we believe in that we preach, right? And that'll be constant throughout the rest of this season going into the future. But yeah, and players do make plays, right, sometimes. But now we were talking about in a different subject here at Eli. Yeah, I don't know that way. But we talked about the certain bowl games that I had to play in, right? So we played in the Boise Humanitarian Bowl. Yeah, playing Boise State in the snow. Nothing says, here's your bowl gift, like 25 degree weather in Boise, Idaho. I know, yeah. See, now we're talking about that too, right? With the new NIL and all those other gifts. I was saying that you get a bowl gift back in the day. It was like, oh my goodness, can you believe we got... Now it's like... Have you heard that given to the school to send checks to the players? So these players could potentially get a $15,000 check for showing off. Yeah, it's way different. I worked with somebody here recently who went back to college football in my past. And he had been out of college for maybe two, three years. Goes back in and called me and was like, it's as if I've never been here. It's just different, right? The NIL, the portal, everything else. And it's a different game. Not just on the field, but off the field. Going back to the... Boise? Yeah, it was beautiful. We snowmobile, man. It was great. Week of my life, absolutely. That in Detroit for the Motor City, in case you care about that one. Keep going. You want to go to... I went to Mobile for the GMAC. I mean Memphis for the Liberty. Talk about warm destinations for your bowl games. Back when I was covering UCLA, I went to El Paso for the Sun Bowl. Oh, Sun Bowl? Oh, yeah. That was a real riveting. Wow. Warm. Oh, yeah. Warmer than Detroit in winter. What's the Shreveport Bowl? Independence. Yeah. There you go. Bowl week here. I've got the Shreveport. You haven't lived unless you've done Christmas and Shreveport. Yeah, National, right? Of course you were. You know, how you think they're doing and what you can see here down in this direction. We need to be better. You pick the one spot that we're probably playing the worst in, so I'm not surprised. So we need to be better. I also found a good one for you, too. The 4.42 yards per carry. 17th in the league. So people are running, but it's tougher for them. So the run defense is, you know, at least you know that that's a good stat for you there. You'd like to have it under 4. Under 4. Yeah, that's what you'd really like to shoot for. But it seems like we have seen more running teams as of late with Carolina and obviously Baltimore and Chicago and a lot more running teams here as of late as opposed to the passing team. So it really, you know, the guys don't, I don't get so caught up in the yards. I get really caught up more in the average. You know, if a team runs for 200 yards, but it's 50 carries, that's 4.0. That's really a pretty good day. You know, it just depends if they run for 200 yards and it's only 25 carries, that's not a good stat. So to me, it's all really about the yards per carry. We're doing okay. I mean, we're holding our own, but we can always improve in that area too. About the four point swings, taking a field goal instead of a touchdown, being good on critical downs. Why do you think that you guys have been good in those kind of key moments being able to, even if a team is driving on you, you know, limit them to three as opposed to seven? It's, I don't know. I just, we've played well. Generally speaking, if you make people go the long, hard way, something will happen along there, whether it's a penalty, whether it's a tackle for loss, you kind of get them behind the sticks, then you can kind of get after them a little bit more on third down. The times that we haven't been as good as when we had all those third down and ones, and you know, those are just hard to stop them on defense. And the other thing is like we've always talked about in here, the ones that you really don't want are the explosive plays. You know, when we haven't had explosive plays, usually the score stays down. Even last week, a couple of the, you know, the one play, now we end up stopping them, I guess, but it was a couple of weeks ago or whatever. It's just kind of like the only scores that we've kind of given up. There's been an explosive play in there somewhere. Usually if you just keep making them grind it out, grind it out, grind it out, usually somewhere along the line they'll either make a mistake or like I say, a penalty or something and get them behind the sticks and then you've got a chance to get them stopped. So, you know, I don't think it's any secret calls. I just think the guys have been, try to teach them that you sometimes just got to really be patient on defense and not get, everybody gets all, boy, as soon as they get a first down, here we go, we've got to go blitz and you've got to do something and you don't. You know, it depends on who you're playing and, you know, just to me, don't panic and I think that's the thing that we've done pretty well in the last seven games has not really got into any kind of panic mode on defense, like even in a halftime, even if we were down like 14 to three or something like that, you know, hey, just, here's the things they're doing to us, here's how we got to get it fixed and I think our guys, probably the thing that I'm most proud of with our defense has been the second half, the way we've been able to go in and halftime and adjust and come back out and generally hold them to a touchdown or less in the last so many games, I think there's only two games all year where we've given up more than one touchdown in the second half and that was the first game in New Orleans and I think Carolina, when they threw the Hail Mary over our dig on head, other than that, I think we've held them to, you know, one score or less in the second half and that's also a tribute to these guys understanding the defense now. The more they play it, the more they understand it, the more they know it, the fewer mistakes they have. We don't have as many mental errors as we had early on so it's kind of all those things. Talk a lot about the way a quarterback can elevate the other two guys on offense. Can a dominant defensive guy do the same thing? I'm thinking about JJ Watt. That's kind of the context that I asked the question at. Sure, I'm sure. You know, I've never been on a team with JJ but, you know, there's always those guys that are the dynamic players on a team that, I mean, I think Aaron Donald did, certainly with the Chargers. You know, you always look at a certain guy, basically a dean lineman that can just change the game with his pass rush and the way he plays and his relentlessness. I mean, guys, it's contagious and, you know, I mean, it was that way kind of back, you know, at Baltimore when I had Ed and Ray, you know, they can, all of a sudden Ray gets a hit and all of a sudden it's like the whole defense just changed. Not that they were ever very bad, but it's just, yeah, those guys can elevate everybody. What goes into being that guy but anything other than just making plays like, you know, making a bunch of plays? I think it's the guy, it's the guy. I don't think, you know, a coach can try to mold a guy into that position. That guy is that guy. Those guys are that guy. They were born that way. They probably elevated everybody through college through whatever. If I remember the story about JJ, I think he started out in Central Michigan, went to Wisconsin as a walk on or something. I don't know. Those guys elevate, they are who they are. It's their personality. I don't think coaches can, I mean, I've coached a bunch of good, really, really good players that were very quiet, you know, but they probably didn't elevate as a leader. They were really good players, but those guys are just, that's their personality. That's who they are and people tend to gravitate to them. So I don't think it's something that you can, oh, I'm going to make that guy. No, he's either got it or he doesn't. And you try to find the guy just in that position when you're recruiting college and when you draft, you want to find that guy. What are you expecting from the Cardinals with McCoy coming back? I don't think it, Hopkins and Conner, the mix. Well, to me, they got a heck of a group of wide receivers. When you start looking at names, I mean, they got four guys, or three guys at least were number ones on their team. You know, Asia Green was the number one, Hopkins the number one, Anderson was the number one, then you got Dagon, Hollywood. I mean, you got a bunch of guys. I mean, they got great leaders there. I, this back Conner is a heck of a player. I mean, I had saw him at Pittsburgh up close and personal a few times. And I mean, he is a really, really good player. I don't think the quarterback thing, I wouldn't make too much of it. They're probably going to have certain things for, McSorley, they're going to have certain things from McCoy. They're going to run what they run, but they got a talented, talented group of skilled guys, very talented. Speaking of leadership, any advice for Ed, as he was named the head coach at Bethune Cookman this week? Ed will be Ed. I guarantee you, this could be, this would be a fun place to play. I'll tell you that, and he will do a heck of a job recruiting. That to me, sounds like they're taking the Deion Sanders approach here and bringing in a guy like that. He's a dynamic, dynamic personality. He was a great player, but he's also just, he will attract a lot of good people. Back spot opposite AJ. We saw Cornell play a lot more. Last week, we've seen Darren fill in there. Like, where is the state of that spot? Week to week. It's week to week. Kind of whoever practices the best that week. And just because he starts may not be, we may play the other guy, and if the other guy is playing well, leave him in. It's really both of them. It's rotating. What do you thought of Darren's over a larger sample size? Like after Casey got hurt, I mean, Darren Hall. They've done all right. They, you know, they've done well. They've done what we've asked them to do. Cornerback's probably one of the toughest positions to play on defense. In a way, it's probably the easiest in terms of different calls having to do a lot of different things like backers do and safeties do and all that kind of stuff. It's the toughest one because you're out there on an island. It's just a tough position in this league because it's just the wide receivers are talented talent. Everybody's got them and you're going to have to match up on them. But I think those guys have done a very good, you know, they've done a good job and that's all I can ask of them.