Bordow: Wilson should worry about ‘D’

So I’m talking to Cardinals defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast Tuesday when safety Adrian Wilson walks by. “It ain’t a big deal!” he shouts.

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Wait a minute. Arizona’s first-team defense gave up 17 points and 265 yards to the San Diego Chargers in the first half on Saturday.

The week before, the defense was torched by the Houston Texans for 229 yards and scoring drives of 85 and 73 yards. That’s not a big deal?

“It’s the preseason,” Wilson said. “It don’t matter. The games don’t count.”

Boy, that’s good to know. Because I was thinking that if this is the defense that shows up for the Sept. 10 regular-season opener at San Francisco, the over-under for the 49ers’ total points should be 35. And I’d take the over.

But there’s no need to worry, apparently. The Cardinals are playing possum. They’re hiding in the closet, waiting to scare the daylights out of opposing quarterbacks. They’re Dr. Jekyll now but they’ll turn into Mr. Hyde later.

“I hope we’re going to be alright,” coach Ken Whisenhunt said. Hope? Hope? Didn’t he hear Wilson? It ain’t a big deal.

“I don’t know why everybody has put so much stock into it (the preseason),” Wilson said. “There’s no panic mode.”

OK, so we won’t panic. But can we just fret a little? After all, no one on the projected first-team defense has a quarterback sack through the first three preseason games. San Diego’s Philip Rivers and Houston’s Matt Schaub were a combined 29 of 41 for 390 yards, with two touchdowns and no interceptions.

If running back LaDainian Tomlinson had played Saturday, the Chargers might have scored 50 points.

“I’m very confident in our ability to get things done,” Pendergast said.

The Cardinals have a simple explanation for their bend-and-break defense: They’re not trying very hard.

Both Pendergast and Whisenhunt pointed out that Arizona has used few of the blitz packages or exotic schemes it will employ in the regular season. The Cardinals did blitz more often against San Diego than they did against Houston but for the most part they’ve played a vanilla scheme because the coaching staff wanted to evaluate players in one-on-one matchups.

“I know there have been a number of situations where we could have done some things different defensively which maybe would have put some more pressure on the quarterback and gotten some more quarterback hurries but we’ve stayed true to the course,” Whisenhunt said. “A lot of times we’re rushing four guys and they’re blocking with five or six. So that’s a little bit difficult.”

The Cardinals also are comforted by the fact that when they’ve cut loose in practice — blitzing, stunting and mixing up their schemes — they’ve more than held their own against Matt Leinart and Co.

“We’ll be more active in the regular season,” Whisenhunt said. “Hopefully, that will result in more pressure.”

That had better be the case, because if the defense isn’t any better in that Monday night game against San Francisco, the Cardinals will have some explaining to do.

And “It ain’t a big deal” won’t cut it.