Now with his second season in the books, defensive lineman Dante Stills is more prepared for the offseason and the business side of the NFL. Looking back, it’s days like Monday that opened up the eyes of an impressionable rookie last year.
“I’m not going to lie, last year, it kind of shocked me a little bit, not just with our team, but all around the league,” Stills said. “It sucks. I’m sad. But I hope most of the guys can be here for the long run.”
Unlike the end of school when students are excited for the summer, the Cardinals don’t want to leave. Multiple players wished they were able to win a few more games so they could’ve played more football.
While there is not an excitement to leave the facility, there’s an eagerness to maximize the time away throughout the offseason.
“Going into the offseason, you have that fire in your gut,” Stills said. “With the training and the drills you’re about to do, just remember all of the times you lost a rep or you lost a game.”
Coach Jonathan Gannon spent Monday meeting with most of the players and those conversations will continue throughout the week. Each person given a couple of bullet points about areas to improve.
The players and coaches will receive a break, Gannon said, but the head coach knows the work for 2025 has already begun.
“What matters to me is how we’re going to improve because we have to win more game than we did this year and there’s a path and an opportunity to do that and it starts with me improving,” Gannon said. “I told the team today, ‘You could go about it two ways. You can listen to all the narratives, the outside noise, the external factors, and all these things about why we didn’t earn the right to play right now. Or you can go about it in a way that says, I didn’t do a good enough job.’
“We’ll take that on the chin and improve from it.”
