Arizona Cardinals: 3 interesting takes from Friday’s training camp session - July 28th

The Arizona Cardinals are still in their early stages of training camp, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been a few notable takeaways. In our previous take, we noted Clayton Tune saw time with the second-teamers, while Isaiah Simmons played a lot of safety, and Noah Togiai lined up at fullback, or better yet, H-Back.

So what jumped out on Friday, July 28th at Cardinals camp? A less eventful day overall, but there were still a few tidbits worth noting.

Takeaways from Arizona Cardinals training camp - July 28th

1 - New practice uniforms

When the Arizona Cardinals debuted their new gameday uniforms in April, they didn’t seem to come with new practice threads. That changed on Friday when we saw the Cards in plain jerseys and red shorts, along with their now-familiar helmet bearing the new logo featuring an enhanced cardinal head. 

The Cards donned their old practice uniforms during their offseason and initial camp workouts, which resembled their former infamous gameday look. It was a small, but nonetheless interesting takeaway for a team whose fanbase predominantly wanted them to ditch every aspect of its former look.

2 - Budda Baker’s comments

We saw Budda Baker fully participating in camp after he got his raise, and following his words on Friday, it looks like he’s 100% on board with the Cards in 2023. And he also sounded as though he’s more than okay with the media’s and most of the NFL universe’s assumptions regarding the Redbirds.

""I’m all-in. This is early in the process, we're in training camp; for me it's all outside noise, I don't really pay attention to none of the projections and all those things, because at the end of the day that's people's opinions. And they're not in the building, they're not working with us each and every day. They don't know; it's just their opinion and I'm OK with that.” "

- Budda Baker

Source: Safety Budda Baker 'all-in' with Cardinals after settling contract situation by Grant Gordon, NFL.com

And Baker is absolutely correct. Nobody knows this team better than those attending the meetings, working directly with the players, or being part of the process behind closed doors. Baker’s comments serve as a reminder that we need to take the overall perception of the Arizona Cardinals this season with less than a grain of salt.

3 - Michael Wilson playing with the first team

I’ve been projecting that Michael Wilson will open the season lining up opposite of Marquise Brown as a starting receiver. Now, it seems as though that is the case. Wilson, while injury-prone, boasts solid size that three of the Cardinals other four top projected receivers don’t have, and it’s one that can create mismatches downfield. 

I’ve also seen clips of Zach Pascal making quite the impact, indicating that if the trend continues, we will see plenty of size in what many initially thought would be a small receiving corp. If the arrow for these two players continues to point north, they will be more than exciting to watch.