LB Anthony Walker Jr. (11.1.23)
Anthony, which quarterback from Arizona are you expecting to see?
“Whoever steps on the field of first play. We got to be ready for both. Unique opportunity. Obviously with Kyler Murray coming back from injury and then the rookie quarterback, we just got to be ready to play against whoever shows up on the field.”
The fact that neither has played a down this year is that complicating things for preparation?
“Not at all. I mean, obviously, you go back and look at Kyler Murray and what he’s done over his career, an elite quarterback for a reason, and then rookie quarterback, you’ve got a little bit of preseason on him and then a little bit of college tape, see what he can do. He can make every throw and all that stuff. That’s some good backs. Obviously, that run game is really powerful. We got to be ready for that. Obviously, we haven’t done well stopping the run in the last two weeks, so that’s going to be a big challenge for us. But we got to get that done first and we worry about everything else.”
Anthony, Drew (Petzing) came from here. Does that give you guys a little bit of an edge in knowing what you might see?
“Again, we just got to go out and execute, do what we do. Obviously, Drew being here, obviously, he knows our players, he knows what we do, and then obviously we know him and we know the scheme that he runs. So, it’ll be a fun matchup.”
What do you have to do because of the fact that these guys haven’t played this year? Is this really a week where dialing up the pressure could be very important for you guys?
“We got to execute the call, whatever we call. I think one thing we do well is we rush the pass well with four, five, six, or seven or whoever number’s called at that point. We got two great edge rushes, three, four, or five great edge rushes and then get a lot of penetration inside with the interior. So, whatever we do, we just got to execute and do it at a high level.”
What do you guys have to do to shore up that run defense?
“Yeah, fundamentals, technique. Standard gaps, come downhill as linebackers set the edge, whoever that is, and then have to get off blocks and make tackles. All fundamentals and details.”
After you guys review the tape from Sunday’s game, the confidence level you guys have had all season, just that last play, how do you continue to have that confidence into this week?
“Yeah, we know this defense is made of. We know we can do. The belief in, trust in the players, in the system and the coaches and everything like that is at a high time level, as it’s always been. Like I said, you play in the NFL, you’re going to go against good players. You’re going to go against good teams that make a play. They made one more play than we did last week.”
For seven series, they did nothing but punt and then give up the ball in an interception and then there’s that turnover offensively and it goes right down the field. The environment. Know how loud it got there. How was he able to just turn it on?
“Yeah, we didn’t execute. We didn’t execute the coverage. We didn’t tackle the ball carrier down, give up a huge chunk play in two minutes you can’t really do, and then we just got to execute, get off the field. However, that is, whatever that looks like, however we get it done, we got to do it. We can point to a lot of different plays. We can point to how the game started, 17 straight points, touchdown, touchdown, field goal. And then you play good ball, but you spot a team 17 points. You can’t do that in the NFL.”
Are teams finding a way to take advantage of your aggression as a team?
“No, I think we’re never going to stop being aggressive. We just got to be aggressive the right way. Standing our gaps, getting downhill as linebackers. And then I think in the pass game, again, we got the best corners in the world. We love that matchup with all those guys. Like I said, just got to find a way to finish down.”
As a captain of this defense, how do you get this defense back to playing how it did in the first couple of weeks?
“Yeah, just getting back to the standard, what we talked about, and then again, just the heightened awareness of fundamentals and technique.”
I asked you a couple of weeks ago about RPO. You didn’t have to worry about that in Seattle, maybe now you do. So, is there added emphasis on the RPO game?
“Yeah, it’s always an emphasis. The NFL has shifted to that a little bit, no matter who you play against. So, you always want to have that on your radar. We practice that every week, and that’s never going to change.”
Without giving anything away schematically…
“You know I wouldn’t do that.”
I know, but I asked this under the guise. Is it now, as you say, this is becoming more commonplace in the NFL? So, is there a little bit of a defensive playbook now on how to approach dealing with RPOs in comparison to when it just started to become more prevalent in the league and defenses were kind of scrambling to try and figure out how to slow it up?
“Yeah, I think as the game is ever evolving, I think the defensive coordinators are evolving as the offensive coordinators are evolving as well. (Jim) Schwartz does a good job at a lot of things, but I also think evolving is one of the things that he does really well and understanding how to stop certain plays and certain, like you said, a package of RPOs. The way we play them, I think, is kind of the best in the NFL. But again, if it’s not executed the right way, it doesn’t look that way.”
We talked a lot about being resilient. Does coming off a loss like that really test your resilience?
“Not really. We lost, and I think nobody in the NFL wants to lose. Being at this level and understanding that the team that we have, the opportunity that we have, the resilience, you know we lost, so we got to respond. We have a huge challenge ahead of us in Arizona, and you get a chance to play NFL football on Sundays. You never want to take that for granted. So that’s the resilient part of it.”
When an offense has success, the more it’s on tape, defenses catch up to it. Do you think the same is happening with your defense? The more you guys are out there, offenses are looking and trying to find ways to beat you?
“Yes. To answer your question, yes, we’re on the field. Yes, they see things. Again, it goes back to us. We don’t worry about what teams are figuring out what we do. If we don’t do it at a high level, if we don’t do it with the same intensity, with the same detail and focus, it’s not going to look the same, right? We’ve seen clips where we run the same call, team runs the same play and we punch them in the mouth and then we run the same call, the team runs the same play and we give them a 40-yard run, right. So goes back to us. The focus is on us this week.”
Coming into the season, not much was expected of Arizona, but when you watch them on tape, they play a lot better than people thought that they were going to be. So, when you look at that offense, busy setting the quarterback aside to see who that is, but what do you see offensively from them that’s made them so challenging?
“Well, it’s the NFL again, a team record doesn’t paint the whole picture. If you look at six games, they’ve had the lead in each game, right? Deep into the game, or it’s a one score game where they have a chance to take the lead or tie the game, right? So, we can’t take that mindset that they were supposed to be bad or they’re a 1-7 football team. They’re a good football team, right? They’re in the NFL, they have NFL players. Their offense, obviously, like I said, you said about the quarterback situation, very unique. But one thing they do very well is run the ball really well. Right. James Connor being the great back, he is obviously out with an injury, but the other backs run really hard as well. Again, right now, I’m pretty sure they’re looking at our tape. The last two weeks, we haven’t stopped the run worth of shit. So, we need to change that right now and we got a big task ahead of us.”
You talked about going back and seeing Kyle Murray’s previous games on tape, but he is in a different system now. Does that matter? How does he project
“I think Drew (Petzing) will put the best foot forward. If he does play, he’ll make sure he’s in advantageous positions. Drew did a good job of that when he was here last year and the year before that. So, I truly believe that they’ll put him in the right position, right. You could say different scheme and all that stuff, but he’s going to be in a position where he’s going to be successful.”
When you look at him (Kyler Murray), obviously his size, he’s still able to find ways to get the ball out, all that athleticism. How is he able to do that?
“That’s a question for him, right? I think he has a baseball background so throwing at different arm angles and different speeds, different paces. He obviously has control of the ball really well. Being able to use his legs again, it’s a gift from God and his parents, I guess. And yeah, he’s able to make every throw. He’s able to make plays. He’s a playmaker back there at quarterback. If he plays. We got to be fundamentally sound in what we do. Keep our eyes on him just in case he runs and obviously challenge receivers on all the throws.”
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