One-time Cardinals wide receivers coach Shawn Jefferson, a former player, once famously donned a full uniform when he was coaching in Miami to give a full understanding to his players about a teaching topic. That isn't happening with the Cardinals, although watching new defensive line coach Winston DeLattiboudere III wear cleats as he coaches is interesting to see.

He isn't the only coach who wears cleats at practice, and as head coach Jonathan Gannon pointed out, the way the offseason rules are in terms of what players are allowed and not allowed to do, "sometimes they have to be the blocking dummy."

Still, Gannon shakes his head at the situation.

"You have L.J. Collier putting his two hands on you and getting off the ball, you can slip and go down pretty quick," Gannon said. "We've had a couple coaches go down already which I don't like to see. I keep telling them, 'Get out of the drill, you're gonna get messed up.'

"I used to do that when I was a DB coach and then someone punched me in the chin and I bit my tongue and I said 'I'm never doing that again.'"

With DeLattiboudere -- Coach DeBo -- in particular, there are caveats. He is a former defensive lineman. And he is only 28, younger than Collier and half the defensive line room. Defensive coordinator Nick Rallis broke into a smile when told Gannon wasn't someone who would want to be in drills. "He's anti-doing that because he can't physically do it," Rallis cracked.

But Rallis said when he was a position coach he too liked to jump into drills.

"I felt I knew exactly the look I wanted to give them or the feel I wanted to give them," Rallis said.

There are times, Rallis said, where he would prefer to use players as the teachers -- there are no better people to show the defensive backs about, say, a slot release, than DBs like Budda Baker, Jalen Thompson and Garrett Williams, who have seen in many times. And athletes will do it better than former athletes -- like he and Gannon, Rallis noted, again with a smile.

That isn't always possible with CBA rules this time of year. Regardless, Gannon sees discretion as the better part of valor.

"They'll learn, sooner or later," Gannon said of his staff. "To each their own."