Cardinals react to Lamarcus Joyner’s “pretty boy football” label

[Rusher]

Kyler Murray complained to Antonio Brown after last week’s game, asking the Raiders receiver why Oakland’s defense “gotta bring the house on me?” The Cardinals either were annoyed or amused by safety Lamarcus Joyner‘s postgame comments. It was hard to tell.

Joyner appeared on ESPN and called Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury’s spread-oriented scheme “pretty-boy football.”

“I don’t mind the ‘pretty boy,'” guard Justin Pugh said, via the team website. “We got some good-looking guys. What do you want from us?

“We’re still going to go out there. We’re going to be physical. We’re going to do what we’ve got to do. We have to play hard-nosed football. We’re running the same runs we’ve run everywhere in my career. I’m not really sure what some of these people are watching. It’s still football.”

The Cardinals have pointed out they didn’t game plan for the Raiders. (Of course, the Raiders didn’t game plan, either.) The Cardinals also have said that they aren’t showing their actual offense during the preseason, keeping it vanilla so opposing defensive coordinators have little film.

“We were super vanilla,” running back David Johnson said. “They can say what they want. They played well against an offense that didn’t even scheme against them. It’s whatever.”

Murray and his offense will be judged on the regular season, not the preseason. So, they will get a chance to shut up critics, who came out of the woodwork after the Cardinals’ first-team offense gained 12 total yards and two first downs in 14 plays over four series against the Raiders.

“Just because we don’t line up with two tight ends and run the ball, I guess we’re pretty boys now,” receiver Christian Kirk said. “I guess we’ll have to show how pretty we are this season.”