Differing views when judging Cardinals offensive line

Arizona Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt has said good things about the way his offensive line protected the quarterback Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks.

“We protected very well; our guys did a great job,” the coach told Arizona Sports 620’s Doug and Wolf Monday. “Once again against a very good pass rushing team.”

Whisenhunt pointed specifically to the play of left tackle D’Anthony Batiste, who was making his first career start at the position, and noted rookie Bobby Massie’s performance at right tackle, too.

The line as a whole surrendered just one sack in the game.

“I thought that the line played well from protection,” he said.

The fine folks at ProFootballFocus.com beg to differ.

In their analysis of how the line played, they note that the Cardinals have “an offense built on weak foundations.”

In one-on-one situations, every single player, except perhaps for Daryn Colledge, appeared to be outmatched and they struggled even to make double team and combo blocks work correctly. On the edge, D’Anthony Batiste in particular was victimized by Chris Clemons.

The site’s perspective paints an entirely different picture than the coach’s, and it’s worth wondering how that could be.

Whereas ProFootballFocus.com has little to gain from needlessly trashing the line’s performance, the head coach would have reason to say good things about his group, whether they deserve it or not.

After all, as the site even notes, “it is difficult at this point to see how this offensive line can move forward without getting some unexpected performances from backups or some fortuitous pickups on the waiver wire.”

Whether the Cardinals line was actually good like the coach said or terrible like the site thinks, the fact is the Cardinals are not likely to find any better options at this point.

So would there be anything to gain from saying they didn’t (and maybe can’t) get the job done? Probably not.

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