Desmond Bishop had two weeks to impress the Cardinals coaching staff enough to keep him when final cuts rolled around. He was signed on Aug. 14; the Cardinals played their final preseason game on Aug. 28.
To him, the challenge was old hat.
“Honestly, I felt comfortable, probably because for the most part, every year, I had to struggle to make a team,” said Bishop, who spent the first six years of his career in Green Bay and last season with Minnesota. “People don’t know that, but it really was the case and that makes you comfortable in this situation, so you just go out there and let it all out.”
Bishop set a lofty goal when he arrived at Cardinals training camp with the team more than two weeks into practices.
“This is how I think: Say Patrick Willis, who I guess you could say is the best middle linebacker in the NFL; if he was in my shoes, what would he have to do to prove that he belongs, to make them say ‘that’s the guy?’
“That was my standard and motivation.”
Bishop says he hasn’t performed as well as he’d like, given the short window, but he feels comfortable with most of what the Cardinals are doing on defense.
“A lot of the stuff we’re doing here, I’ve done in the past,” he said. “There’s just the language and that will come.”
