Arizona Cardinals offensive line still needs work

They struggled all day on Sunday as the Arizona Cardinals offensive line needs to play better if they want to beat someone other than the San Francisco 49ers

Injury is always part of the reason why many of us Arizona Cardinals fans complain about the lack of production from the offensive line.  That is only part of the reason though.

For most of Sunday, the line looked familiarly bad.  They had a hard time getting push off and creating holes for backs to run through.  They allowed three San Francisco 49ers sacks, which in the grand scheme of things doesn’t seem that bad.

They seemed to give Rosen a little more time in the fourth quarter comeback.  Still, they need to be more consistent.

Andre Smith, Mike Iupati, Justin Pugh have all suffered through injuries this season’s first half.  Rookie lineman Korey Cunningham has been hurt most of the season. Pugh sat out Sunday’s game.

Even when they are in the game though, they seem to struggle more than not.  John Wetzel‘s name comes up a lot, although he did have a couple of nice plays late on Sunday.

Rookie Mason Cole at center has been serviceable but more than the Cardinals planned on being so.  A.Q. Shipley is missed with the season ending injury he got in the second week of camp.

They have some tough tests coming up.  All eight of the Cardinals opponents in the second half of the season can get at it.  Five of those tests come on the road.

D.J. Humphries needs to play better as well.  He’s not been exempt from poor play at times.  They even gave up a safety on Sunday.

Sure, the safety was ruled because of Rosen’s intentional grounding, but he was going to the ground after the pocket quickly collapsed around him in the end zone.  There is some fault though on the still learning Rosen.

It’s the same old story though.  No consistency when healthy, none when not either.  Is it better to build the line through the draft?  They’ve tried but that hasn’t worked out lately.

Iupati, Smith, and Pugh were all highly regarded free agent pick ups but there’s usually a reason their former team let them go.  All we want is for the offensive line to create some gaps in the running game and give Rosen time to make an accurate throw on a more consistent basis.