The Arizona Cardinals have their bye this week, the final week a team can have a bye. The players will not only have the weekend off. They will have the whole week off.
Head coach Jonathan Gannon had the players come in on Monday following their 24-10 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers but that will be it.
“I think the players need a mental break,” Gannon told reporters on Monday. “I do believe in that, so I don’t really want them studying a lot right now. I don’t want them looking at different things. Just relax for a couple days, then get back into it.”
He said he and the coaches will not use the week off to prepare for their Week 15 game against the San Francisco 49ers.
On a bye week, teams can hold practices Wednesday through Friday but then the players would have the weekend off.
Gannon will have the players come back Monday to get an extra practice to get ready for the 49ers.
“We’ll work on Monday. We call it a bonus Monday,” he said. “We’ll get them going in practice, lift, meet, take Tuesday off and then have a normal week.”
Gannon is both rewarding the players’ hard work this season and trusting them to take care of business.
“We always talk about expectations and standards with our guys and going on a bye week is nothing different,” he explained. “I trust our guys to do the right thing, get themselves healed up and mentally stay engaged a little bit as it gets later on into the week, but I actually want them to put it down for a little bit here.”
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