The Arizona Cardinals began Phase 3 of their offseason on Wednesday with their first practice of OTAs. This phase of the offseason can be four weeks. Teams are allowed to have 10 practices for OTAs over three weeks, all of which are voluntary. Then they can have a three-day minicamp, a total of 13 practices allowed.

However, the Cardinals are opting for a shortened schedule. Rather than the three weeks of OTAs for 10 practices, they will have only two weeks and six, followed by the week of minicamp, a total of nine practices.

 “I just felt good with the nine,” head coach Jonathan Gannon said on Wednesday. “I look at the global view of that and the nine practices, I feel like we can get done what we need to get done.

“You guys will see some different things today that you haven’t seen in two years. But you know, we tweak some things for development and health, you know what I mean? So that’s kind of the teeter totter that I live in, you know.

The Cardinals have cut the offseason short. In 2023, they only had two minicamp practices. They only had one last year.

So this is just a planned reduction to get the players off for their summer break earlier.

Gannon believes they will accomplish what they want to accomplish in the three weeks.

“I feel really good about the plan in place. We’ll take it day by day though. We’ll have to make adjustments. We’ll see how the day goes and go from there.”

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This article originally appeared on Cards Wire: Arizona Cardinals to accomplish offseason goals with fewer OTAs