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Cardinals Will Face Broncos Starters in Preseason

The Denver Broncos will be playing their starters when they visit town in Week 1. Will the Arizona Cardinals do the same?

GLENDALE -- The Arizona Cardinals just wrapped up their annual Red and White practice at State Farm Stadium. 

The next time they'll be as physical as they were today? Friday, when the Denver Broncos visit town for Week 1 of the preseason.

That will be the first of three games for the Cardinals in the preseason, as new head coach Jonathan Gannon will have a series of live-action tests to run his players through before the regular season is here and games begin to matter. 

It's always interesting to see how differently teams across the league navigate the preseason slate, especially with only three games compared to the previous amount of four. 

We recently saw the Cleveland Browns sit majority of their projected starters in the Pro Football Hall of Fame game. Other teams don't mind ramping up their players as much. 

Though we're unsure of what the Cardinals will be doing, we know the Broncos will be rolling with a full squad when they come to State Farm Stadium.

“I haven’t shelled it out yet, but they’re going to play … We’ll figure out the snaps. We typically break the game into three phases, first, second and third phase and then special teams we might just have two phases, but we’ll have a plan, especially as we get into next week," Payton said via The Denver Post

That will include quarterback Russell Wilson and former Cardinals DE Zach Allen, who signed with the Broncos in free agency after defensive coordinator Vance Joseph joined the team in the offseason. 

When asked what Arizona's plan was for the preseason earlier this week, Gannon said it would come on a case by case basis:

"Case by case basis. Every team's a different team. Every player is a different player. So, those conversations are going on now. But we'll make that decision collectively with the player, make sure he understands why the decision is made and we'll go from there."

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