After spending five years watching the Arizona Cardinals from the sideline, Bruce Arians viewed his former team from the CBS broadcast booth Sunday in Kansas City.
Monday he joined Sports360AZ.com’s Brad Cesmat to share his thoughts on what he’s seen so far, starting with the Cards’ rookie quarterback.
“I think Josh Rosen is a tough guy and an accurate guy,” he explained. “I think he’s something really special and someone you can build around. He’s a very, very confident young man. With rookie quarterbacks it’s going to be high and low because it’s such a learning curve for them.”
Some of Rosen’s progress, Arians believes, is due in part to new offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich who he hired as his coaching intern back in May of 2016.
“I really like what they’re doing offensively now with Byron running the show,” he said. “He knows how to use David [Johnson], he knows how to get Larry [Fitzgerald] involved. But he can’t block them. The offensive line, with all those injuries, it’s tough to see Josh get hit that many times. The more you try to help the tackles, the fewer guys you have go out for the passes. The tackles have to hold up. The whole o-line has to hold up better.”
Defensively, Arians believes Arizona is more than holding their own, including Sunday’s performance in a competitive loss to the Chiefs, who feature the league’s most potent offense.
“The stars on defense, Chandler Jones obviously, Markus Golden, Corey Peters” he said. “The d-line, with Robert Nkimdeche healthy, is one of the best in the league.”
The Cards (2-7) host the Oakland Raiders Sunday afternoon in Glendale.
