The Arizona Cardinals can’t get enough of their hot-shot rookie quarterback.
New coach Steve Wilks said in May that the likelihood of 10th overall pick Josh Rosen starting in 2018 isn’t a longshot and gushed to reporters that the signal-caller has the "mindset of a vet." Rosen’s fellow rookie Christian Kirk said that if Rosen were to start Week 1 under center over veteran Sam Bradford, the Cards would have just as good a shot to win right away.
But as first-year Cardinals, Wilks and Kirk are new to the desert. So has optimism about Rosen extended to Arizona’s veterans?
If Patrick Peterson‘s evaluation of the Chosen One is any indication, yes, yes it has.
"I’m very impressed," Peterson said on Monday’s edition of The Rich Eisen Show. "To see [Rosen] make checks and get guys in line early, I was like, ‘Has this guy been here before?’ I was very, very impressed of his spring camp, minicamp, OTAs. He’s just been extremely sharp."
Peterson added that he was pleasantly surprised by Rosen’s maturity at camp, given the generally unfounded negative hubbub about his personality during the pre-draft evaluation stage.
"Honestly since he’s been with us, he’s been the total opposite of what you hear from the media or you hear from outside people," Peterson explained. "The way he’s able to grasp the offense and get guys in line right now, I’ve been very, very impressed with that. As far as his throwing motion and his quarterback IQ and his pocket presence and all that stuff, it’s off the charts. I’ve never seen a rookie come on a team and do some of the things he’s doing."
That’s high praise — even though, since Peterson was drafted by the Cardinals in 2011, Ryan Lindley and Logan Thomas are the only quarterbacks to be drafted by the team. (Not much competition there for Most Impressive Offseason of the Decade by a Cardinals Rookie Quarterback.)
Though Wilks and Co. have made it clear that free-agent acquisition Sam Bradford is expected to start once the season begins, the 11-year veteran has a notoriously dicey injury history. This makes the offseason development and instruction of Rosen, the presumptive backup ahead of Mike Glennon, all the more important.
Thankfully for Arizona, the early returns franchise-wide, from newbies to captains, on Rosen’s readiness have been overwhelmingly positive.
Here are some other tidbits from the three-time All-Pro cornerback’s interview with Eisen:
» Peterson compared Wilks’ defensive philosophy to that of his old coach, Bruce Arians: "He is bringing a different, I don’t want to say a different attitude, just a different atmosphere, not in a bad way, or not in a good way. Just added some things to what [Arians] did. We got the tempo. Everyone likes to play with tempo.
"The defensive side of the ball will be much more simpler than what it was in the last couple of years. So it’s just going to allow guys to line up and play football. If the offense will be playing cover three, you know, we’re not going to outsmart anyone while we are on the football field. We want to make teams adjust to us. That’s going to make us that much more lethal as a defense. Have us play a little bit faster taking down the mental errors."
» Entering his eighth season, the soon-to-be 28-year-old corner explained how he has mastered his technique over the years: "I am just a different player mentally than I was once I first got into the game. The game has just slowed down so much for me to where I can almost see it in slow motion, to where especially in my press you know I just feel like I’ve been doing it for so long it almost feels like I’ve got a choke on the game as far as in my press techniques."
Peterson recorded a career-low one interception and 34 tackles last season. He has never missed a game.