The Cardinals offensive line was bullied last Thursday in St. Louis, Mo., as the Rams nearly beat quarterback Kevin Kolb to a pulp, sacking him nine times and hitting him countless other times during the course of the night.
An offensive line can’t allow their quarterback to get hit that many times and expect him to be effective and score points.
Guard Adam Snyder says it’s not time to panic and call in the United States Marines for help.
He still has confidence that he and his fellow linemen will get the job done.
“It’s a whole unit that has to get better, and we recognize that and we’re working on it,” Snyder said. “We’re 4-1, we’re a [darn] good team and we got guys who are gonna work.”
To a man, Snyder says every offensive lineman is disappointed in the high number of sacks given up, but he says it’s just a stat. He says they’re not putting their total focus on numbers, instead they’re putting their time into figuring out what’s wrong and trying to fix it.
Guard Daryn Colledge can tell a difference in the offensive line between the first three weeks of the season and the last two.
“We’ve got some guys not lining up right, we got guys on the offensive line not playing their techniques,” Colledge said. “When you have a combination of that many things, you end up having 16 mental errors and all of a sudden the game’s out of hand.”
Snyder is quick to point the finger first at himself for the line issues, before he would ever direct it at anyone else.
“When I play perfect, maybe I’ll think about calling someone else out, but for right now I’ve got work to do just like everyone else,” he said.