The Arizona Cardinals are now off for the next four days. After what quarterback Kevin Kolb described as the "most impressive two days of work I think we've had so far", the team will now go their separate ways and try and clear their minds and rest their bodies and hopefully come back with a renewed confidence and understanding of how to win NFL games.
Kolb and team won't publicly say anything else, but they are still expressing confidence that all is not lost despite the record and standings.
"Just as quick as we lost these last four games, we can win four in a row and we believe that. Believe it first and then we'll have a chance," Kolb said after practice on Wednesday.
The focus this week has been on third down situations and no-huddle offense and defense. Next week, the team will spend more time on two-minute drill. As coach Ken Whisenhunt pointed out, it doesn't take a genius to know that area hurt the team in three games. (Four if you count Carolina which easily could have been another late-game loss.)
Kolb's opportunity for improvement, according to Whiz, is his footwork in the pocket. Not that we didn't already know that, but it is nice to hear the coach acknowledge it was well.
Kevin remains determined to get better and says that only the tough survive challenges like this and he fully intendeds to be here for the rest of his career. In other words, don't count him out yet.
Accountability
When teams are losing, this is something you often start hearing about.
"The jist (of team recent meetings) was accountability," Kolb said.
"I just think that if everybody has accountability, everybody does their job, we win football games. It's hard to get that many guys to do it, it really is. Everybody has different personalities. I think we have a really good group here of men, professionals...now it's our job to step up and have some self-accountability."
Whisenhunt wanted to be clear that he feels there's been accountability all along (how would it look otherwise?) but that now there needs to be even more.
In a classic case of coach speak, he said, "Our focus has got to be greater on everything we do."
If you're reading that and saying to yourself, "whatever", you're not alone. They understand that all this talk is just talk and nothing will matter unless if shows up on the field.
But at this point, what else can they possibly say?