Commanders HC Ron Rivera Not Overlooking Cardinals

The Arizona Cardinals are now in the final stages of prepping for the Washington Commanders, as just today and tomorrow's practice will be the last on-field reps the team will have ahead of the season opener.

It's been an awfully long offseason for the Cardinals, who have undergone massive changes from top to bottom with the front office, coaching staff and roster.

The rebuild button was hit in a massive way, which has seen expectations in the desert bottom out for 2023, though the future of salary cap and draft picks for 2024 and beyond is exciting.

Commanders coach Ron Rivera was asked earlier this week if he spoke with the team on Arizona's perception:

“No, you don't have to. I mean, these guys understand, these are professionals. These guys get paid just like everybody else does and even last year when we were playing Houston, you know, guys, anybody can beat anybody in this league. It's just the way it is. And so, you have to go out and you've got to play and you better show up because if not any team in the NFL can beat any other team. On any given Sunday, it's not the best team that wins, it's the team that plays the best and so we have to play our best every Sunday.”

There's been a bit of gamesmanship between the two sides heading into Sunday. Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon refused to name a starting quarterback in hopes of maintaining a "competitive advantage" while Rivera wouldn't dive into the status of either Terry McLaurin or Chase Young - both of whom picked up injuries during preseason play.

"I mean, it's all part of it. I mean, I know that the more doubt you can put on in your opponent's mind that the more they got to work and think about and prepare and it might take away from something that might be important or relevant," said Rivera.

"So as far as we're concerned, you know, we'll do what we can and what we have to do and that's how we're going to report it, just based on that.”

Young (stinger) and McLaurin (toe) both practiced yesterday in full pads and were officially deemed limited on the first injury report of the week.

Yesterday, NFL Media's Ian Rapoport reported Josh Dobbs is expected to be the starter in Arizona.

Rivera says preparing for the unknown is nothing new.

"Well, this is the 13th time I've gone through it and when you open up with a new group, there are a lot of unknowns. And again, like you said, they're exacerbating it by not necessarily telling you who their quarterback's gonna be and I wouldn't either. But I think the big thing more so than anything else is you just kind of have to assume. I mean, part of it is you have to look at the background of where these coaches are from, who they, who they've coached for in the past, then you try to draw some correlations to that. And then you go back, and you look at what they did at some of their previous stops, and you pay attention to those things. Some of it will lead you in the right direction and some of it, there's nothing there.”

Cardinals-Commanders will kick off on Sunday, Sept. 10 at 10:00 AM Arizona time.