Jonathan Gannon lives by the coaching law that mandates falling on the sword publicly rather than bluntly blame his players.
That was certainly the case after Saturday’s flag-filled 21-13 Arizona Cardinals preseason loss to the Indianapolis Colts. In his opening comments and a follow-up question wondering about the reason for the numerous penalties called, he uttered 193 words, of which 32 placed the responsibility on himself and the coaches.
Gannon started by saying, “OK, I think it’s pretty self-explanatory. We didn’t mode to play. One of our modes of play is our brain, and we didn’t use it tonight. Falls strictly on me. I thought we were ready to play physically. Violence was on display, good effort, finish, but I just told them we’re not going to beat anybody making those kind of mistakes.
“It’s too hard to win in this league, and you can’t self-destruct, and we did on all three phases. So that falls on me and the coaches. So, we’ve got to get it cleaned up fast, and that’s what we’ll do on Monday. They’ll be off tomorrow and then come into work on Monday.”
Why all the penalties?
“It falls on me and coaches,” he said. “They weren’t ready to play mentally. I think physically, we were ready to play. Mentally, you can’t make that many mistakes and expect to win a game. So that’s on us … So, we’ve just got to be smarter. Like I said, it falls on me and the coaches. We’ve got to do a better job with them, so they understand and play with proper technique so we don’t foul.”
I have a sneaking suspicion that wasn’t Gannon’s passionate message to his team at halftime and following the game.
After seven penalties were walked off in the first half, he told TV sideline reporter Dani Sureck, “Technique. When you get lazy with technique, you foul.”
Gannon reiterated that in postgame comments when asked if he expected the large number of penalties that occurred. He said, “No, because we looked pretty clean. I mean, we’ve been practicing with refs and nothing that’s crazy. But every crew is a little bit different with how they call it. That’s what they call. We’ve got to play smarter than that and with better technique. Penalties come with decision-making and technique. So, if you don’t make the proper decision, that’s normally a penalty. If you don’t play with the correct technique, you’re going to foul.”
The comment about crews was telling. During the regular season, a lot of time before games is spent analyzing the crew and what they tend to call or not call. Not so much in the preseason, which also takes into account that seven of the 14 penalties were committed by rookies, with four holding penalties (one declined) on rookie tackle Christian Jones. At least one of those appeared particularly bogus.
Still, it’s on the players to be disciplined, just like two neutral-zone violations helped the Saints win on the final drive the week before.
Deep down, Gannon knows that. When asked what he learned about himself that he needs to work on, he said, “That’s a tough question without any self-reflection time, so I’ll pass on that one. But I’ve got to get the football team operating better for us to win games. That’s my snap judgement off that because that’s what was out there.”
Of course, what was “out there” were a lot of players that won’t be, at least together, when the season opens Sept. 8 in Buffalo.
Here’s a look at the penalties, by the numbers:
14: Penalties flagged, of which seven were on offense, four on special teams and three on defense.
11: Penalties assessed, of which four were on offense and special teams, and three on defense.
6: Penalties flagged for offensive holding, four by Jones and one each by Isaiah Adams and Trystan Colon. One by Jones and Colon were declined, while the Adams penalty was offset by a Colts flag.
7: Penalties on rookies with the five by Jones and Adams, along with illegal contact by cornerback Elijah Jones and running out of bounds on a punt return by cornerback Max Melton.
3: Defensive penalties that resulted in Colts first downs. One was by Elijah Jones, one by cornerback Darren Hall for illegal contact and one by safety Verone McKinley III for unnecessary roughness. Those totaled 24 yards.
66: Field-position yards lost on three penalties, two on special teams. A Victor Dimukeje hold cost 19 yards on a DeeJay Dallas kickoff return to the 44, while unnecessary roughness by Bobby Price on a Dallas punt return lost 24 yards. One of the holding penalties on Christian Jones lost 23 yards and wiped out a Trey Benson run to the Colts 2-yard line.
82: Total yards marched off on the 11 assessed penalties. However, the Price penalty was eight yards instead of 15 because it was half-the-distance. A kickoff by Matt Prater that failed to reach the landing zone was placed at the 40, but no yardage was assessed. The three declined penalties would have totaled 30 yards.
1: False start by guard Dennis Daley, which was a fitting end to the game with five seconds remaining at the Colts 34-yard line. A spike was planned to have one shot at the end zone after a 12-yard pass from Desmond Ridder to rookie Xavier Weaver, but Daley moved and a 10-second runoff ended the game.
There was one silver lining on that play. Showing game awareness, Weaver raced from near the left sideline and handed the ball to center Keith Ismael, who wisely waited to hand the ball to the official to spot it.
Those players were surely a lot smarter than Daley.
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