Sports Radio Interviews

Ken Whisenhunt: We Know We Can Win On The Road

I’m still a little disappointed with the way Super Bowl XLIII ended this past February.  I’m never excited when the Steelers pull it off; I’m likely still holding a grudge with the way they took the Seahawks’ Super Bowl.  Man, that was an ugly game.  But, that’s why I can’t be upset over the way Pittsburgh and Big Ben marched down the field to take this showdown.  We all know that the big game often isn’t that entertaining and we’ve been spoiled these past two years.  The best part of the evening is usually the commercials but that fourth quarter shootout between the Cards and Steelers was something else.  According to the betting lines, Arizona is still very much an underdog to come out of the NFC; according to Ken Whisenhunt below, the team is more prepared coming out of camp this year than last.  Whisenhunt joined XTRA Sports 910 in Phoenix to discuss how camp was cut short in his mind, what the Cards learned from their postseason run, and if the team can overcome its east coast troubles.

On if the team accomplished everything they wanted to at camp:

That’s a tough question.  We were up here a week shorter this year because of the late start for us and NAU starting back up.  Would I liked to have another week up here?  Yes, I would because that’s just what I’m used to, but I did feel like we did get a lot accomplished in the short time we were here.  I think a lot of that credit has to go to the players because they showed up in shape, they showed up ready to go, so we were ahead of the gun a little bit that way.  So, we’ve had a good camp, practices have been very good from that standpoint.”

On what the Cards got out of their playoff run:

“I think what we got out of the playoffs was if we practice the way we know how to practice – remember, we weren’t doing real good at the end of the season, we had to kinda pick up our tempo at practice at the end of the year.  That put us in a mindset of how we had to practice, it also put us in a mindset of how we had to study, how we had to prepare for opponents.  And, if you do those two things, now it’s not so much, ‘Can we win?  We know we will win if we do that and play the way we’re supposed to play.  So, that a big hump and that’s the one thing we got out of the playoffs, is that we can be successful doing it the way we’re doing it.”

On becoming a better east coast team:

“I think there’s a little bit of a monkey off of our back because we’ve done it.  We have a plan: we know how we need to travel when we have a 1:00 game, we know how we need to travel when we have a night game, which we do.  We have a Sunday night game on the east coast, we have an afternoon game the second week of the season on the east coast… I do believe our team thinks, ‘Well, we can do that.’  You say, ‘Well, it was only one game,’ well, heck, it was probably the biggest playoff game that we’ve won because it was on the road against a team that was 8-0 at home.  We were not a good east coast team and I think a big part of that is psyche.  We were 3-7 as a road team last year; that’s the area where I really think we need to improve.”

Listen to Ken Whisenhunt with Bickley & MJ on XTRA Sports 910 in Phoenix

Tags: Arizona Cardinals, Football, Ken Whisenhunt, NFL