Nick Rallis - Head Coach, cardinals Event: Press Conference | Date: 2026-09-10 | Full transcript (primary source).
Nick Rallis addressed the media during a press conference on September 10, 2026, as the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals. The conference focused on game strategy and player roles ahead of their upcoming matchup, highlighting the complexities of in-game decision-making and preparation.
Transcript
Rallis: What goes into figuring out who's going to be playing the snaps when they're going to be playing the snaps? Is that an in-game thing? Is that something you guys play on ahead of time or does that work? I mean a little bit of both. Like you go into the game you know rolling out certain spots but at the end of the day I'd say within every situation we're rolling pretty deep so most all those guys have to play multiple roles and I'm talking you know situationally whether that's normal downs, pass downs into the red zone so but you can definitely get within a game and if a guy's hot you try to get him as many of those plays in which he's kind of you know doing a good job at.
Rallis: You talked to Mike yesterday about scripting. Can you script at all or is it so dependent on? Oh you're talking about like the first. Yeah I mean it's it's that's difficult from a defense perspective because so much of how you call it depends on first situation then what personnel they're bringing in the game but you can't have a kind of a rough plan in your head of however you broke the game down situationally of what you know kind of what you want to unload early on but I wouldn't say that you're ever gonna like be on a script you just kind of have some thoughts in your head on where you want to start things off.
Rallis: This is a unique situation I feel like going into this game where you have an elite play caller, you're going to want to take on a quarterback, you're the ones that you want, but never together. I guess what have you looked at and what has this preparation been like? Yeah you have to be able to mesh the two. I mean it's not the first time this has happened to us last year but you have to be able to mesh the two and kind of figure out hey within all their personnel is not just the quarterback what their skill sets are and you know what Mike likes to do what could it look like and then you always got to be ready to adapt week one because he's gonna have adapted whether that's just because you know 25 going into 26 season you know there's things that he's gonna do different but also you know he's got different personnel and so a good coach like Mike he's gonna find ways to utilize you know his player skill set to their best abilities.
Rallis: How does it specifically just about his play calling style that make it just so difficult to go against? Well he's a great in terms of play calling he's a phenomenal play caller because you can't sit there and pin him for hey this is coming in this spot so he knows what he's doing in terms of having variety to how he calls a game but then schematically like I would say if you just took their bare bones of how they you know block in the run game and how they marry everything to look the same whether that's you know the wide zones or even some of their inside runs and then to marry that with the pass game that makes him just good alone and then his ability to dress things up is is elite so kind of mesh all those things and you know you feel that challenge as you prepare throughout the week.
Rallis: Now that we're here how long have you been working on the Georgia? You know I probably started you know back in the spring but then kind of had to pick it back up as we kind of got out of training camp and closer to this game week.
Rallis: Can't really tackle with just so many limitations of practice and training camp so when it comes to week one do you have like a longer leash or maybe extra grace of when it comes to tackling for your players? Well I wouldn't say that they're on any kind of leash period right but you know I brought that up in the meeting today because I thought what we could control yesterday in practice was you know our tracks on the football and keeping a cup and getting in positions to finish you know I thought that was really good and ultimately at the end of the day you know you're gonna work those techniques and individual where you kind of work a little bit more of the point of attack I would say the contact point of it and then you know when we're going against the offense and team periods you got to work on getting in those positions and then come game day like let it loose and apply all those things we've been training for but yeah that's definitely a thing week one I you know pretty much said outside of the preseason games we haven't been able to go 60-plus plays of tackling in and out so that's something that we have to have on our mind and you know come Sunday just let it rip.
Rallis: How have you seen Denzel kind of attack that nickel spot now getting more run there? Yeah I mean you know Denzel is a guy that puts in a lot of preparation time so he's been putting in that preparation from the spring and he'll be ready to go in any spots.
Rallis: You must have a guy like Garrett who's coming back after a serious injury and you know Mike has talked a lot of times about returning to play and returning to perform and how there's a difference there. As a coach like when it might go up to a game weekend or whatever like how do you approach your mentality without whether you might have this player you might have this player how do you kind of yeah I mean like at the end of the day we're preparing for a lot of guys to play because whether or not that guy's pegged in as a starter or could even be a backup like you never know when your number's called so I wouldn't say it really changes our preparation much and then the easy thing about that is you know Garrett is he's such a pro that he's gonna be prepared always.
Rallis: Last time you played Herbert he I noticed he just kind of was able to stand in the pocket just a lot of things happening below his knees because of his size and stature he could just kind of absorb all that. How do you go how do you try to get a guy off his spot when he's that big that yeah I mean like that I mean you're you're dead on with that like he's an elite player and if there's a clean pocket you know he's gonna be able to sit back there and put the ball where it needs to even if it's a coverage wise with the route concepts a difficult throw we can make those throws so you know I mean that goes into how you rush number one and winning your one-on-ones up front and rushing as a unit where you can't win a one-on-one on one side and go rogue on the other side because he knows how to get out of those situations so we have to do a good job collectively a front four of collapsing the pocket you know or winning your rushes however that whatever that looks like and then he's not easy to break down either so we got to finish those plays because he's tough like he'll stand tall in there and I mean there was a play from 24 we had him wrapped up and he just kind of stayed tall and delivered still so that's not something we can work throughout the week but that's something that's got to be on our guys mind I mean no because we got to have a lower target zone I think you just got to wrap up and accelerate through it's like you're tackling a running back.
Rallis: When you look at the linebacker duo with Mac and Jack Gibbons what excites you about that pairing just overall just football players like they're gonna play violent Cody in there to playing violent extremely smart you know I feel like we can put a lot on their plate and it doesn't really slow them down as players so it's I can honestly say is definitely one of the smartest linebacker rooms I've been around and I've been around some some very smart ones so it's been fun to get into a game week and you start to you know talk about the opponent and things that you're going to do and just see how well that that group absorbs it.
Rallis: This time last year there was a lot of hype around your defense and in entering this season and external expectations across the league are fairly low do you guys look at that as inspiration and you feel a desire to prove anyone wrong what do you think my answer is gonna be no absolutely ignore the ignore the noise you know we're focused on what do we have to do right now to get ourselves prepared for Sunday because we know and the reason that we we talk about that and I've talked about this too is like there are a lot of things externally that that do matter to people and everyone's got different stuff whether that's you know career aspirations or or money or you know just outside perspective and reputation so it is a real thing but ultimately after the end of the day the result we want is to win games and in order to win games got to play good defense and so the best way to go about that is just where do we hold our attention in the moment and if we're putting our attention on anything but preparing for the Chargers then it's going to take us away from maximizing that opportunity on Sunday so easier said than done but that is a hundred percent of what this building is about is being where our feet are and attacking whatever we're in meetings walk-through practice recovery all that.
Rallis: He looks he looks phenomenal means so violent so sudden with his hands yeah excited to see him go.
Rallis: Yeah tasking with things you do your thing a little a little bit of both I mean I don't want any player to feel like they're pigeonholed into having to play a certain way but I would definitely say that like sweaty has taught me things in terms of just how he approaches his rush plans and you know how he sets things up is actually been able to trickle into the teaching of other guys and so you know I always feel like players at the end of the day will give you I don't know how to say this will they'll give you like the coaching points of here's how you can go make it happen because they are naturally doing that on the field so you see sweaty do certain things to whether that's set edges or winners rushes and we're able to absorb that and use that for other guys as well so I think like players a lot of times they're going to tell you how to execute a technique to get it done because they're out there problem-solving right and they just have a the intuition of how to get their job done and what you start to do as you watch tape you know specifically through the offseason is hey maybe this is how we should teach this technique because you see it's working for this guy not say that every guy is going to fit into that technique but like Josh is an example of a guy that I've learned a lot from so I'm not trying to say hey this is how you have to do anything and then I got to give him as other tools that hey if you put this in your game this could help you you know take your game to the next level.
Rallis: Can you put a percentage on how much you change is it more strategic is a philosophical a little bit of both yeah I would say a little bit of both I don't know if I can put a percentage on it but I guess we'll find out Sunday you know it's kind of it's kind of hard to say now honestly for me because what we've what we've graduated to or what we've kind of adapted to is is like my new norm so I guess now for me it's it is it's what it is and I don't know why don't we talk about that next week and you tell me which feels different.
