Cards notebook: Team to stay back East after Sunday's game

The Cardinals are starting the unique stretch of their season.

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On Friday, they will head for Washington, where they will not only play a game on Sunday, but where they will stay for a full week.

That's because they won't return to Arizona between visits to the Redskins and the New York Jets. In between games, they will practice in Washington.

"It saves us 6,000 miles of travel and 10 hours in an airplane," coach Ken Whisenhunt said. "That's a big difference. ... When you travel that long in an airplane, your body suffers the effects of it."

Whisenhunt pointed out that the Cardinals played poorly last season in East Coast losses at Washington, Baltimore and Tampa. This approach is a way to try to fix that.

"The time change has an effect on your body," he said.

Players find it difficult to sleep the night they arrive, so the Cardinals are flying out on Friday (sometimes they flew out on Saturday last year).

"That's something we're trying to do better ... and put our team in a position to win."

Then Whisenhunt uttered words seldom, if ever, heard in Cardinal-land.

"If we get to the Super Bowl, that's what this week would be like," he said of their Eastern trip. "You have to go to another city for a week and practice."

He pointed out that the New York Giants stayed at a Gila River Indian Community hotel and practiced at the Cardinals' facility in Tempe before their Super Bowl win in February.

As a player, Whisenhunt once stayed a week in California between games in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

"I thought it worked out well."

BOLDIN ON FITZGERALD

Anquan Boldin had fun with the fact that fellow receiver Larry Fitzgerald was caught from behind on a 75-yard pass play in Sunday's win over Miami.

"I'm faster than Fitz. We all knew that," Boldin said.

More seriously, Boldin praised Fitzgerald for running over and through tacklers on the play.

"That's a part of his game that's improving. You see him working on it in practice, running after he catches."

EXTRA POINTS

The Cardinals had no update on three players who suffered apparently minor injuries Sunday - cornerback Rod Hood (neck), cornerback Eric Green (calf strain) and tackle Levi Brown (knee strain). Green said he was OK, Brown said he doesn't expect to miss time and Hood was unavailable for comment. ... Travis LaBoy had a quiet game in part because he had to miss 10 to 15 plays on defense while team staffers struggled to fix a broken face mask. ... Whisenhunt said Matt Leinart "looked very good" in a brief role late in Sunday's game, in particular on a play in which he hit tight end Leonard Pope for 15 yards. "He was very calm in the pocket. It's tough when you sit and don't play. What I was most excited about was to see his technique and fundamentals, to execute those late in the game."