According to Sean Murphy-Bunting, Cardinals have different speed days to avoid injuries
Yesterday, after the first day of training camp, the Cardinals’ new CB1, Sean Murphy-Bunting indicated that the team’s #1 priority in training camp is to keep all the players healthy for the regular season. Which is why Jonathan Gannon is running a regimen of slow, medium and fast days of practices.
We’re talking days here.
Sean Murphy-Bunting said when asked about Jonathan Gannon’s multi-speed practice philosophy, “Yeah, it’s structured differently, he’s trying to protect the players to make sure everybody is healthy going into our season. I’m not too used to the way they are doing it —the slow. medium and fast days — but it’s good for my body and my mental (frame of mind) and it’s what’s best for the team.”
Arizona Cardinals CB Sean Murphy-Bunting says the main goal of training camp is staying healthy for the regular season. @PHNX_Cardinals pic.twitter.com/N4lfsaHFEU
— Bo Brack (@BoBrack) July 24, 2024
Commentary:
Bruce Arians accomplished the best winning percentage in the regular season in the history of the Arizona Cardinals at 49-30-1 (,619 winning %) and Ken Whisenhunt, garnered the team’s best all-time playoff record at 4-2 (.667 winning %), the most NFC West Championships at 2 and the team’s only appearance in a Super Bowl.
Both Whisenhunt and Arians came from the Bill Cowher coaching tree that was so supremely successful (161-99-1, 12-9 playoffs Super Bowl XL champions) for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Whiz and BA believed in practicing as hard as possible as a means to get their teams in the best football shape given what the NFL and NFLPA afforded them in terms of practice days.
Yet neither Whiz nor BA were subjected to a the NFLPA’s recent coaching grades that coaches receive from the players. The criteria being two-fold:
1. How well do the coaches maximize the players’ time?
2. How accessible and eager are the coaches to get their players’ input on how the team is being run?
Notable omissions:
1. How well do the coaches provide the team with a competitive advantage through their practice and game planning habits?
2. How well do the coaches get the team in tip-top physical and mental strength
What’s most surprising to me is how far Monti Ossenfort has deviated from “The Patriots’ Way” that Bill Belichick set a golden standard for in preparing his teams to win championships.
One might argue that coaching today in the NFL is a whole different ball of wax than what it was while Bill Cowher and Bill Belichick were in their primes. One might believe that because Bill Belichick was not hired to be a head coach by any of the team in need of one this past off-season that there could be a perception that Bill’s disciplined team-building tenets such as “No Days Off” are now anachronistic.
However, as many historians will note, certain leadership cycles have a way of going full circle, especially when the latest trends are not measuring up to the older ones.
Bill Belichick should be in high demand next season, particularly for a team that lacks a disciplined structure. Disciplined coaching structures will never go completely out of vogue in the NFL.
Typically, the NFL teams that are in the best of shape and that are the most disciplined in their approach to winning games are the ones who hoist the Lombardi Trophy.
Therefore, one might wonder whether CB Sean Murphy-Bunting, who was able to hoist the Lombardi Trophy in Tampa Bay in large part because of how hard Bruce Arians and Todd Bowles coached the Bucs knows deep down inside that the slow, medium and fast days approach to practice is not typical of the kind of approach that Super Bowl contenders adopt.”
Why was Larry Fitzgerald rarely if ever hampered by injuries? How did he accomplish his superior level of play year after year as hard, tough and aggressively as he played?
Because Larry came to camp in tip-top shape. Which gave him the confidence to play hard all the time.
That’s the #1 way for NFL players to avoid injuries. Get in tip-top shape.
Vince Lombardi said it best:
“Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.”
“The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.”
Perfect practice in the NFL is at game speed.
Ken Whisenhunt never wanted his players to be injury conscious. He rarely if ever took guys out of the game. He ran them hard in practice — he even called a practice on Christmas Day that the players later said catapulted the team toward its first (and only to date) Super Bowl run. Whiz played his starters in pre-season games so as to harden their bodies and hone their teamwork in preparation for the season. Bill Belichick always did the same.
One could make a persuasive argument that the ultimate way to play is not to be injury conscious — for players to trust in what good shape they are in and then just as importantly, be fundamentally conscious when it comes to the physical aspects of the game like blocking, lowering a shoulder on contact and tackling.
Every team has walk-throughs on the eves of games, but the most successful coaches in the NFL are the ones who can create NFL game speed at practices on a consistent basis. Learning and improving at game speed builds a team’s confidence more than anything else
There is little to no benefit in teams running at quarter and half speed. In fact, because winning football is so predicated on timing, slow to medium paces can mess with that precious timing.
I just recently posted the video of Kyler Murray throwing a play-action deep corner pass to MHJ with both K1 and MHJ repping at full speed. Running a key timing play like that play-action corner pass at half speed defeats the entire purpose. Kyler would have to slow everything down for MHJ. Then what, is MHJ supposed to jump halfway up for a 50/50 ball?
Last year when Gannon was calling off on-the-field practices and a full week of rookie practices, the question was “how is this going to look if and when the Cardinals get whomped in games, particularly within their own division?”
This year Gannon’s three-tempo practice approach inevitably creates a new question — if and when the Cardinals get whomped by an opponent, particularly in their own division, “did the Cardinals show up on slow speed today?”
One should argue that the best chance for the Cardinals to succeed this season is to out-work and out-prepare their opponents. How in the world are slow and medium practice days going to accomplish that?
Furthermore, how does this unorthodox practice approach affect the players who are desperately trying to win roster spots? All great instincts in football, like a CB breaking on a pass to their man come at full speed. What is a CB supposed to do at half speed? Jog to the area of the pass and let it be completed?
There has always been one speed in football and that will never change.