The company line, from the Arizona Cardinals, has been that Jacoby Brissett’s contract holdout did not matter.
He’s a veteran, they say. He’s seen everything that a quarterback can see on a football field. He knows every route, every pass protection, every coverage shell. He’s never played under Mike LaFleur, of course, nor in this new offense, but his experience trumps all. That’s been the public relations spin all spring and all summer.
So, does Brissett feel like he’s up to speed with this offense?
“Oh, hell no,” Brissett said.
That was last week, on the day that the Cardinals signed Brissett to his renegotiated contract — which will now pay him an additional $10.9 million against the salary cap, spread over the next two seasons, per Over The
Cap.
But Brissett, acknowledging the challenges created by his extended contract negotiation, added this: “I've got a long way to go. But I'm willing to put the work in.”
In recent weeks, Brissett joked, he had begun sleeping three hours a night, consumed by the stress of his contract negotiations. Now, he said he’ll be sleeping three hours a night “for work purposes.”
Within days, that work has seemingly already begun paying off. At the start of this week, the Cardinals’ offense was sloppy. Brissett didn’t know where he wanted to go with the football, and the pre-snap operation was untidy. But by the end of the week, Brissett showed improved command of his own offense, consistently finding receivers including Marvin Harrison Jr. and Michael Wilson downfield.
What does that work look like? Well, it has a different cadence under Mike LaFleur than it would have under his predecessor, Jonathan Gannon.
Previously, the Cardinals practiced in the middle of the day. The logic in that schedule is that it allows teams to meet after practice, closing the book on each session before the end of the day.
But LaFleur sees things differently. In a practice adopted from Sean McVay’s Los Angeles Rams — where LaFleur was the offensive coordinator — the Cardinals now practice at the end of their day, typically after 3 p.m.
They hold film study in the morning at the Wigwam Resort, where the team stays during training camp. Then they have a lifting session and lunch before heading to State Farm Stadium for a walkthrough.
As Brissett catches up to the rest of the offense, that time is invaluable.
“By the time he actually gets out there (at practice)," LaFleur said, "he's gonna already have called the play two, three, maybe even four times."
Kedon Slovis, one of the Cardinals’ reserve quarterbacks, has played for teams that practice with all sorts of schedules. This version, he said, enables quarterbacks to get more out of live practice sessions.
“The morning walkthrough helps Jacoby in a sense of, we have some unique plays today, let's practice calling them, let's practice seeing it,” Slovis said. “Let’s think about your motion landmarks, let's think about the cadence you're gonna use.
"So that way when he goes out to practice, it's not his first time hearing the play call.”
That practice schedule is one part of the Cardinals’ plan to catch Brissett up to speed. The other part lies in the progression of their offseason.
The Cardinals spent voluntary organized team activities in the spring — which Brissett missed — installing LaFleur’s new offense. Now, they’re reinstalling the offense. That means they’ve already practiced the base concepts and are either working on different plays they can run off those concepts or on running the original concepts against more complex defensive looks.
For Brissett, that offers a chance to revisit plays on which he missed the initial install.
“(Our) conversations, particularly separately, in the quarterbacks room can be slightly different,” LaFleur said. “Maybe a little bit more of the 'why' because some of it is the first time.”
That’s where his additional work comes in, both at the facility and at home. And the goal is that, within weeks, he’ll be fully caught up, ready to go for Week 1.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: How Cardinals are getting Brissett caught up after contract holdout
