GLENDALE, Ariz. -- A funny thing can happen when a team goes 7-8-1.

The same people who a year ago thought the Arizona Cardinals were the best all-around team in the NFL, which led them to become the chic pick to not just play in the Super Bowl but win it, now think their window to win a title has been slammed shut -- even with the same coach, same quarterback, same running back, same No. 1 receiver, same outside linebackers, same star cornerback and same star safety.

When the Cardinals begin training camp Saturday, they'll take the field with lowered external expectations but the same internal ones: to hoist the Lombardi Trophy next February. The difference this season is they won't be asked about it on a daily basis like they were a year ago. And that'll have an impact in its own right.

"When you have the outside stuff coming in and putting more pressure on yourself, to fulfill things outside of yourself, it's tough," veteran defensive lineman Frostee Rucker said. "Right now, everyone is geared toward making sure we do the small things and not worry about the first game of the year.

"Now we're worried about the first practice."

It's up to each individual player to control what they can control, outside linebacker Chandler Jones said.

"There's always going to be expectations," he said. “There’s always going to be critics. And there’s always going to be pin marks [about] where you should and shouldn’t be. Our job as a team is to do what we can do and that’s to buy into what the coaches are coaching and control what we can control.”

Being the favorites comes with one mindset, coach Bruce Arians said.

Being the underdogs comes with an entirely different one, he added.

But Arians said this year's Cardinals don’t look at themselves as the underdog, despite whatever the public perception might be. Arians didn't shy away about what he'd prefer the public perception of his team to be.

"Well, you'd like your fans to think you're good, you know? So they get excited and we think we're pretty good," he said. "I'd rather be the favorites."

Before the Cardinals are favorites again, change is needed, Rucker said. Like dealing with the "little things," which Arians said cost the Cardinals some games last season.

One major focus of training camp will be tackling. There'll be more of it this year than in the past, but Arians will be selective in when Arizona does it. However, since the Cardinals have tackled just during goal-line scrimmages in past camps, anything more will be a significant adjustment.

Everything Arians plans to change during camp will be done with the goal of tipping the win column to be heavier than the loss column. With that will come a change in the public perception of the Cardinals.

"It's just about the work and doing the small things and, really, correcting our wrongs," Rucker said. "Just because we finished well in a lot of categories, we still didn't win enough ball games, so we need to get the wins in the column.

"I think it's just our focus level on us. Right now we need to take care of in-house and make sure we're on point and all our little things are corrected because it's the little things that we have to get better at."