We heard a lot this week from the coaches about the explosive plays that doomed the Arizona Cardinals in Sunday’s loss to the Seahawks.
Now, we’ll hear from some of the players, notably the key leaders on defense: safety Budda Baker and linebacker Kyzir White.
After head coach Jonathan Gannon and defensive coordinator Nick Rallis noted the high motor being lacking at times, Baker was asked point-blank if he believed that to be true.
He said, “I believe so. We’d have some plays where there was high motor, high violence. Then there were plays that weren’t. That was different for us.
“It all comes with just executing. Each and every player doing their job. All 11 players doing their job. If you got eight players doing their job and others aren’t, those lead to explosives, those lead to negative plays for us. The execution wasn’t quite there.”
White said it’s all about players accepting accountability.
“It could be gap integrity. It could be not playing without enough motor and violence,” he said of those damaging explosives. “Maybe some loafs out there, things like that. But look at the tape and look yourself in the mirror and just be honest with yourself and going out there this week and try to be better.
“Look at the film, get better from it, correct it and just get back to the basics. I feel like we’ve been a pretty good run defense all year; had a few slipups, but just go back to what we’ve been doing.”
White put a number on the limited loafs that are somewhat acceptable.
He said, “There were definitely some plays that were not to our standard, but definitely going out this week, we want to play to our standard. There’s always gonna be some loafs in a game, but just try to limit those as much as possible.
“As a group we like to be 92 percent (no loafs) and above, so when we go in Monday morning if we didn’t hit 92 percent as a group, we feel like it’s not to our standard and it’s not a good game for us. It’s not Cardinals defense.”
Baker talked after practice and he said that’s where the standard is accentuated.
He emphasized, “We’re just focusing on doing those things throughout the week. Wednesdays are more mentally driven and Thursday, today, was a day to show high motor, high violence because we understand if we do that throughout the week, we’ll do it on Sunday. That was a big thing for us today.”
And, most important, he said he felt like it was accomplished.
“Had a great practice,” he said. “Offense, defense, special teams. Had a great practice running to the ball. High motor, just executing our plays, each and every person doing their job. That was the main goal, the main assignment for us today and I think the guys did that.”
While the Patriots are 3-10, they’ve lost five one-score games and in their last outing before a Week 14 bye (a 25-24 loss to the Colts), the offense totaled 422 yards (6.5 per play) and the running backs produced 200 on 31 attempts.
Running backs Rhamondre Stevenson (18-73) and Antonio Gibson (7-62) combined for 135 yards on 25 carries, while rookie quarterback Drake Maye contributed 59 on five runs. He completed 24 of 30 passes for 238 yards, but was sacked four times.
Baker knows what they’re up against and acknowledged there is a “huge urgency” to stop the run.
“Their record is their record, but they play really hard,” he said. “Their offense plays very hard. Their running backs, they run hard. Big running backs, guys that just wanna tote it downhill. We understand that. We didn’t do a good enough job of stopping the run, so that’s where it all starts to be able to stop the run and get them into second-and-pass, third-and-pass, getting some pressure on the QB.
“The name of the game in this league is to stop the run because if you don’t, that’s where offenses have the ability to run whatever they want to run. Run the ball, screens, quick game, all that opens up when you can run the ball, so that is something we’re definitely going to try to stop.”
Finally, it was left to White to essentially promise improved run defense on Sunday.
“We’ll get back to it this week,” he said. “Trust me. They’re not gonna have that many yards. God willing.
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