Mike LaFleur did not ask the Cardinals to pretend the outside talk was not there. He asked them to rise above it. As Arizona heads into the regular season under its first-year head coach, LaFleur said Friday that the better frame is not to ignore the noise but to treat it as background while the team focuses on football.
Budda Baker brought the message into the open during a press conference, but LaFleur made clear it was his view of how a season should start. "Listen, ignore might be the wrong word," he said. "You're naturally going to see it. It is what it is. That's just life in general. Really, it's more (being) above the noise. Because it is just noise. It doesn't matter. Not saying people's words don't matter, per se, but it doesn't matter in our locker room."
The reason the line landed now is simple: the Cardinals are about to play the Chargers in L.A., and the opener is where the talk stops being abstract. LaFleur tied that idea to the league’s weekly grind, saying, "This is a week-to-week league, and our focus is going to be 1-0 every single week, and above all that is playing good football." That is the message from a team that has heard plenty of doubt while trying to show the preseason offense was real.
The problem is that Arizona still does not have every answer for what it will put on the field. Monti Ossenfort said Friday on the Wolf and Luke show on Arizona Sports that Josh Sweat had an "offseason procedure," and Sweat had been on the PUP list when camp started before looking explosive in the open part of Friday’s practice as he returned to full work. Carson Beck is QB3 on the depth chart and will dress as the emergency third quarterback because of an NFL rule change from a couple of years ago, another reminder that some parts of the roster are still being sorted out.
That uncertainty reaches the line LaFleur is asking everyone to trust. Dante Stills is listed as the starter ahead of Darius Robinson, and he said he has to back up that spot with production. "At the same time I have to go out there and show why I belong up there," Stills said. "It's all great before the season, 'Oh, look, he's the starter!' But I have to produce on how I know I can." The starters named on the defensive front are Stills, Roy Lopez and Walter Nolen III, with Andrew Billings and L.J. Collier part of the rotation group, which means the depth chart may matter less than the snap count once the game begins.
Saturday could bring a little more clarity if Evan Hull is elevated from the practice squad, a move that would also help define what Arizona has around Jeremiyah Love. For now, the Cardinals are asking for patience in public and certainty in private, and those are not the same thing. The opener in L.A. will show whether LaFleur’s version of above the noise is a slogan or the start of a team that can hold together once the season starts counting.
