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- Mar 19, 2019
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Cardinals linebacker Jordan Hicks feels like there might be some deja vu in the air.
Hicks was a member of the Eagles when they went 7-9 with a first-year head coach and a rookie quarterback during the 2016 season. He was also a member of last year’s 5-10-1 Cardinals with rookie head coach Kliff Kingsbury and rookie quarterback Kyler Murray.
The Eagles went on to win 13 games in 2017 and then took Super Bowl LII by beating the Patriots, which has Hicks thinking big about the trajectory that Arizona could be on.
“It’s eerily similar of a situation that we’re going into,” Hicks said, via the team’s website. “The year before I won the Super Bowl in Philadelphia, we had a rookie head coach and a rookie quarterback in Carson and Doug Pederson. We had our highs and our lows, and as a defense we didn’t know what our identity was. But we got better as the season went along — very similar to what you saw with us this past season — and then something hit.”
That Eagles team brought in players like Alshon Jeffery, LeGarrette Blount, Jay Ajayi, Timmy Jernigan, Ronald Darby and Chris Long before or during the season. Hicks sees more similarities with the Cardinals “making big-time moves” like the trade for wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins to go along with signing defensive players like Devon Kennard, Jordan Phillips and De'Vondre Campbell.
Whatever the similarities, Hicks knows turnarounds like the one in Philly don’t just happen on their own. He said you have “to will it into existence” and the Cardinals’ ability to do that or anything close will be put to the test this year.