The Arizona Cardinals play their preseason opener Friday night at 7 p.m. Arizona time at State Farm Stadium against the Denver Broncos. It will be the first game for Jonathan Gannon as a head coach and the first for several of the coaches on his staff in their current position.
On Wednesday before the team’s final open practice at the stadium for training camp, Gannon detailed what were his goals for Friday night’s game.
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Compete
The first thing he noted was how he wants the players to compete. It is the culture he has fostered in the building. Everything is a competition.
Even as a preseason game, they are to compete.
Know, understand and execute roles
The second thing he wants to make sure happens is something that deals with basically everyone.
“From an organizational standpoint, does everyone understand exactly their role on game day and how their roles fit into us winning and losing games,” he said. “We have to execute those things and I’m sure there’s going to be bumps in the road but everybody that’s a part of game day impacts game day.
“I think it’s clearly defined for everybody. I expect certain things to happen on Friday night that need to happen, and I’m looking forward to go dry run it.”
He has established how communication needs to happen — who should communicate, who shouldn’t and why.
Player evaluation
Gannon says he and the staff will use games to give complete evaluations. They evaluate everything — schematic execution, physical execution and technique.
Win
“Every time you strap it up and go in between the white lines, you want to win the game, so that’s always the No. 1 goal,” he said.
