Posted by Darren Urban on June 12, 2014 – 10:59 am

The Cardinals finished up minicamp early today (more on that later) after about an hour’s worth of work and some field-goal kicking to finish up. Now the veterans scatter until training camp in later July. (Those dates should be out soon.) One of the questions for the next month-plus is who will be available when camp starts, in particular, safety Tyrann Mathieu and nose tackle Alameda Ta’amu. Both are recovering from torn ACLs — Mathieu had extra damage beyond that — but both have been steady in rehab.

“That’s strictly up to the doctors, trainers and them,” coach Bruce Arians said. “I’m not going to hurry them. We have plenty of time. If they aren’t ready for the first day of training camp — which I doubt anyway, because I’ve never thought that. I had Oct. 1, or after the (bye week) as the target date for me personally. If they do something better than that, God bless ’em.”

A return post-bye week would mean either or both would miss the first three games — San Diego, at New York and San Francisco. Both players have talked a lot about being ahead of schedule, but running during the summer and actually putting on pads, cutting and having people slam into you and dive at your knees is a whole different thing.

“It’s a long process, and it’s going to continue to be a long process,” Mathieu said. “I just try to come to work every day, stay on top of my rehab and just continue to push myself. I don’t try to get too down about it, and I don’t try to get too up, too excited. My knee’s feeling good. I just take it as it comes.”

Mathieu says he still hopes he can play against the Chargers in the Monday night opener.

Tags: Alameda Ta'amu Posted in Blog