MINNEAPOLIS — Terence Newman usually views film of the Vikings’ next opponent at the island in his kitchen, but on this night, three days before Minnesota was to host the Arizona Cardinals, he had relocated to a more comfortable spot. Lounging in an oversize leather chair, his legs dangling over the edge, Newman cradled a team-issued digital tablet containing hours of video clips.

He pulled up the red-zone plays Arizona had run this season. Even though Newman, as a cornerback, is charged with making receivers disappear, on every snap he also studies the habits of running backs, tight ends and quarterbacks and how they work in concert. Once, he figured out that a team would pass whenever one of its receivers fiddled with his gloves before the snap, and now he was hunting for another subtle hint to tip off what might be coming next.

“Ooh!” Newman said.

He blurted an expletive and rewound the play he had just watched three, four, five times.

“I just picked up something,” he said. “Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, baby. See that?”

Motioning for a visitor to come closer, Newman cued up the clip again. The play, from just before halftime of Arizona’s Week 8 loss at Carolina, featured four receivers, two on each side of the formation, with quarterback Carson Palmer lined up in the shotgun. As some of Carolina’s players realigned, Palmer glanced right and then left while twirling his index fingers in the air like helicopter blades.