The Cardinals were missing head coach Kliff Kingsbury and a handful of players for Sunday’s game because of COVID protocols, but their absence didn’t stop them from blowing the Browns out 37-14.
Kingsbury’s absence meant that the Cardinals had other coaches handling both head coaching responsibilities and offensive playcalling, but none of the changes were noticeable as the team rolled to their sixth win in as many games this season. Quarterback Kyler Murray said assistant wide receivers coach Spencer Whipple “didn’t panic” while calling the offensive plays and defensive coordinator Vance Joseph said that calm approach was in place across the board.
“It’s been an up and down week, but our team leaders were great all week,” Joseph said, via Josh Weinfuss of ESPN.com. “No one wavered, no one blinked. The staff didn’t blink. Every day it was bad news and no one blinked -- not one time. Even yesterday. Even Saturday morning at practice when the players knew that Kliff was down for the game, there were no worries. There was really an excitement to go play a really good football team. The boys performed. This staff is amazing. It’s a great football staff. It’s our third year all together and that helps -- having continuity like this.”
The Cardinals had defensive lineman Corey Peters test positive on Sunday and Joseph expressed concern that the team may not be out of the woods on the COVID front, but the team handled things as well as possible on Sunday.
