Thoughts welling up from Broncos/Texans game

December 14, 2007 by Jim Skane

1. Saw and listened to the whole thing. Looks like Bryant motor-mouth Gumbel has been fired. Much better.

2. Seeing Cutler play again, I’m convinced he will develop into something special, even though he threw four terrible sure picks straight into Texans’ dbs hands, two of them in the end zone, only to be saved by drops. (DBs are just WRS who can’t catch)

Anyway, Collingsworth did a good job of explaining how Shanahan and Cutler worked hard all summer on altering and improving Cutler’s poor throwing mechanics and footwork.

This is exactly what Whisenhunt has had to try to force-feed on Matt Leinart.

And going way, back, it’s what Bill Walsh had to do with Joe Montana. Walsh drilled Montana over and over on taking the exact steps and drops needed, setting his feet, moving his feet, throwing mechanics and ball fakes.

Today, it seems Peyton Manning is the best example of what attention to fundamentals can do for a QB.

Back to Leinart. If you read today’s article in the Republic and Darren Urban’s article on the team’s web site, Matt has finally bought into the program.

The republic article is better because it explains how Matt admitted his private life had been a mess and had made last year a hard year on him and it never allowed him to focus in on football properly. Go read it yourselves. It’s a Kent Somers masterpiece: http://www.azcentral.com/sports/cardinals/articles/1213cards1214.html

All of you know I’ve never felt very positive about Leinart’s upside potential as an NFL QB. I think I’m about to be proven wrong and I’m thrilled. Urban and Somers don’t fabricate or sugar-coat. Come on Matt. We need you.

3. If you missed it, in the past few weeks and I can’t remember the source(s), although I think it was Whisenhunt himself in a press conference, we’ve gone back to a lot more zone blocking, because it’s what Edge runs best behind.

Zone blocking is not what our guys do best, nor is it what Whisenhunt wants us to do next year. But for now, we are doing it to maximize our run game productivity and hopefully, enhance our chances of winning three more games.

Courageous and pro-active decision by the Cardinals’ coaching staff, methinks.

Posted in arizona cardinals, football