S Grant Delpit (11.3.23)
“We feel good. That’s our QB1. But like I said, P.J. (Walker) was going out there. We have the same mentality. We focus on what we got to do and having the squad there going to be good for us, going to be good for the offense, morale and hopefully bring a spark. So, I’m looking forward to it.”
You don’t know who’s going to start, the Cardinals (Clayton) Tune or (Kyler) Murray. Just how has that complicated your preparation this week and what were you able to do to maybe work around that in preparing?
“Well, first of all, we had to clean up our work. We had to clean up our mistakes, focus on ourselves, first of all, and then after we correct that, move on to them. At the end of the week, I’ve seen some going back and forth to who’s going to start for them, but at the end of the day, man, I feel like they got to stop us. We go into every week like that. If we come with our best self, with our best defense, with our mentality, we’re trying to be the best man, and no matter who they put out there, we should take care of business in my mind. We have a game plan for both of them, both good players. So, we’re looking forward to Sunday, man.”
How do you make sure that you guys bring the same intensity for a 1-7 team as you would for a division rival?
“It’s the NFL. You could win and lose every week. I don’t pay attention to the record division rival, whatever comes with that same mentality because you never know might get punched in the mouth. This is a big, big game for us, opportunity for us in front of our home crowd, make a statement, win in front of our own crowd then gone next week. I feel good, we’ve seen a lot, so go into Sunday and try to take care of business.”
Grant, I know guys this week have talked a lot about shoring up the run defense over the last two weeks. How seriously do you take that responsibility? I know it seems like you always relish that for the game individually.
“That’s something we pride ourselves on, the run defenses. It hasn’t been good enough. Past two weeks, we slipped and we can’t go on a landslide. We know this team is going to try to run the ball and we got to stop them, make them one-dimensional. Every week is kind of sounding the same, but what we put on tape, we put on tape. Teams [are] going to try us. We got to figure it out.”
What do you see from those skilled guys? They’ve been in a lot of their games. Even though the record isn’t reflective of, you know, they’ve been very competitive this year and play teams tough. What do you see from those receivers and running backs when you watch them on film?
“Fast, man, fast. They’ve got Marquise Brown, fast, good receiver. Rondale Moore is another quick, speed guy, catches the ball, is a playmaker. They lost the tight end (Zach) Ertz, but 85 (Trey McBride), second year player. He’s good. I’ve seen his routes. He looks like he’s a scrappy player. We don’t know what their new quarterback could do. Whoever’s going to be we know Kyler Murray can do, but it’s going to be his first game, so we got to get on him early plays. We have a rookie quarterback as well, but he can make plays too. So they have playmakers, man. The record doesn’t show it, but we don’t pay attention to that. Play Cleveland Brown’s defense, man and take care of business.”
And they’ve been in most of their games and they also beat the Cowboys. So does that help you guys make sure that you’re taking them as seriously as you should?
“Yeah, I think they’ve held the lead in all their games. I think, yeah. It’s a statement to them. They’ve played in some close games that haven’t gone their way. So let’s try and do our job, do what we can do and not make it close.”
You mentioned earlier about how before you guys could even focus on the Cardinals you had to take care of your own business. Without giving too much away, what was the most important thing impressed upon you guys this week coming off that tough loss?
“The most important thing pressed upon us by who?
Jim (Schwartz). Who do you think?
“Of course, it was stop the run, man. We got to do that in any NFL game to limit things. And we did a better job last week than we did at Indy, so we kind of build off that. But big plays as well, man. I don’t know how many yards the running back had rushing, number nine (Kenneth Walker II), both of them had a good amount. He had most of his yards on one play. So that’s how that works. You can’t have that. In order to do what we got to do on third down, we got to win first down. We got a couple of bullet points, man, that we got about take care of business.”
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