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— Barring unforeseen circumstances Youth Dallas Cowboys Jerseys , rookie Josh Rosen will begin his first NFL season on the sidelines as Arizona’s backup quarterback.

The preseason, though, will be his chance to shine, beginning Saturday night when the Cardinals play at home against the Los Angeles Chargers.

“We want him to play quite a bit and really get into the flow of the game,” coach Steve Wilks said.

Rosen said his two weeks of training camp have “gone really well.”

“I think I’ve gotten better pretty much every day since I’ve gotten here,” the former UCLA star said before Wednesday’ practice.

Sam Bradford is Arizona’s starter but the Cardinals view Rosen as their franchise quarterback of the future. Why else would they have moved up five spots in the draft to pluck him 10th overall?

Asked for specific areas of improvement since he became a pro, Rosen cites “a bunch of things.”

“The most tangible is probably the playbook,” he said. “I feel a lot more comfortable and fluid with it at the line of scrimmage. I’m focusing more and more with what the defense is trying to do to me rather than making sure I get the right snap count and in the right protection.”

He said he’s also picking up “the little things on how to use the double-cadence to try and buy yourself time and get someone offside, just little tricks of the trade I didn’t know when I was in college.”

From the beginning Bradford and Rosen seem to have gotten along well.

“Sam’s actually really good with all those little things,” Rosen said. “He’s a crafty vet and very successful for a lot of different reasons. He might not share every reason with me, but I’ll take advantage of the ones that he does.”

Bradford said Rosen “asks the right questions.”

“He’s hungry for information,” Bradford said. “It seems like he’s always trying to learn something. It doesn’t stop in the meeting rooms. Even at the dinner table he’ll ask me.

“It’s fun to be around someone like that and to hopefully try to be able to help him. I share with him some of the experiences I’ve had, some of the things I’ve learned over the years. Hopefully it can relate to him and can help him in some way.”

Wilks wouldn’t say how much Rosen will play on Saturday night but it will be long enough to do some serious evaluation.

“The mechanics of really running the offense Jarvis Landry Browns Jersey ,” Wilks said, “putting guys in the right position from a protection standpoint, going through his progression and reads and really just trying to detail the fundamentals.”

Rosen is running second on the depth chart, ahead of Mike Glennon, who also figures to play a lot Saturday.

Early in camp, Rosen said he was thinking too much.

“I think I’ve gotten a lot better since then and continue to each day,” he said. “The less thinking you can do, the more you can allow yourself to physically do what I’ve been doing since Pop Warner, and play the game I know.”

As a big-name rookie quarterback, Rosen knows his every move will be scrutinized by fans and critics.

“It’s part of the game,” he said. “I stay relatively offline for the most part. The most pressure I feel from anyone is myself. I’m very, very highly self-critical, almost too much at times. There’s no pressure that should be greater than my own.”

There’s no changing his throwing style either Dante Pettis Jersey , which includes an occasional sidearm toss on a bubble screen.

“It’s not just how hard or far you can throw it,” Rosen said. “It’s being able to change your arm slot and delivery. I think Aaron (Rodgers) is the best at it because sort of like mid-throw, your ability to throw sidearm to fit a quick screen in there or just kind of contort your body to get halfback screens and stuff in there.”

No one has tried to alter that style, he said.

“They drafted me for what I can do and I’m here to deliver that,” Rosen said.

He said he’s made preparation for the NFL a day-by-day process.

“Right now I’m fully in work mode,” he said. “I’m trying to be the best that I can be and over the course of my career I’m trying to win Super Bowls. And right now I’m trying to put my best foot forward in this preseason game.”

Tyler Skaggs‘ return to the Los Angeles Angels‘ rotation for a makeup game against the Royals on Monday was only the start of what manager Mike Scioscia hopes is a wave of positive news.

The ailing Angels, who were in Kansas City to make up a game frozen out on April 15, have seen just about everybody experience some kind of injury this season. They’ve ranged from the typical nicks and bumps to the strained elbow ligament that has Japanese sensation Shohei Ohtani on the shelf.

The Angels had 15 players on the disabled list just over a week ago, the first time they’ve had that many since the stat began being tracked in 1987, and still had a dozen there when they flew into Kansas City.

Skaggs was the latest to rejoin the fold after being scratched from last week’s start with tightness in his hamstring. When asked who’s next, Scioscia deadpanned: ”We’re not going to handicap it.”

But, the skipper added, ”We have a whole team back in Southern California that works out every day.”

Skaggs is among the 27 pitchers who have played for the Angels this season Rashaad Penny Color Rush Jersey , the most in team history through 78 games. He also is among the 48 players who have appeared this season, which means Los Angeles needs to suit up just eight more to break a club record set last year.

Right-hander Garrett Richards‘ workouts took a step forward Monday when he threw a bullpen session off the mound. Richards has been out 10 days with a left hamstring strain, but Scioscia cautioned that his session was ”more of a touch and feel” than bearing down in anticipation of a start.

”This is really just getting on there, seeing how it feels, and obviously we’ll have to progress from there before he’s back in there,” Scioscia said. ”How quickly it comes, we’re not sure.”

Roughly the same prognosis was given for infielder Zack Cozart. He just began to get into ”baseball activities,” Scioscia said, but he’s still in the evaluation phase as he returns from a shoulder injury.

There was no real update on his two biggest stars: Ohtani and outfielder Mike Trout.

Ohtani will be evaluated Thursday, three weeks after he received stem cell and platelet-rich plasma therapy. The Angels hope his elbow will have showed significant enough improvement that he can avoid Tommy John surgery, which would shelve Ohtani as a pitcher for at least a year and possibly two seasons.

What makes Ohtani’s situation unusual, though, is his ability to hit. The Angels could use his bat in the lineup even if he’s not hitting Billy Price Bengals Jersey , and that creates question marks about how to move forward.

”We anticipate, if everything goes well on Thursday, he’ll swing the bat before he’s pitching,” Scioscia acknowledged. ”So, we’ll wait until our evaluation on Thursday and we’ll see.”

Trout has avoided the disabled list as he recovers from a sprained right index finger, but he was relegated to designated hitter on Monday for the sixth straight game. The hope was that Trout could test his hand in center field after about a week, which means it could happen any day.

”We’ll wait and see what the medical staff decides as to when he can go out and throw, and progress out to play centerfield,” Scioscia said. ”He’s not going to play centerfield tomorrow. It’s going to take – we’ll see how it progresses when he starts to throw.”

Indeed, there’s a lot of wait-and-see in Scioscia’s world these days.

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