By the end of the 2023 season, the Arizona Cardinals defensive line was a shell of what it was expected to be at the beginning of the season.
L.J. Collier and Carlos Watkins were on injured reserve with biceps tears, Jonathan Ledbetter had a knee injury that still has him without a team and Kevin Strong was released because of a personal issue that led to a three-game suspension this season. He is also not with an NFL team.
In the season finale, the five active linemen were Roy Lopez, Naquan Jones, Phil Hoskins, Ben Stille and Leki Fotu. Lopez, Jones and Hoskins started in the game against the Seahawks. Jones, Hoskins and Stille were in training camp this summer, but failed to make the 53-man roster, which Lopez did. Jones was re-signed last week.
In the offseason, the Cardinals signed Justin Jones, Bilal Nichols and Khyiris Tonga as unrestricted free agents, while selecting Darius Robinson with the 27th overall pick in the draft. Reinforcements were coming, but only Nichols was available to play against Washington.
Robinson suffered a calf injury in practice 17 days before the season opener and is eligible to return from injured reserve this week.
Still, without him, Bills running back James Cook rushed for only 71 yards on 19 carries (3.7 average) in the season opener and in the Week 2 rout of the Rams, Kyren Williams was limited to 25 yards on 12 attempts.
In those first two games, Jones played 69 and 67 percent of the snaps, but no one else on the line played more than 44 percent. Keep that number in mind because it all changed when Jones suffered a torn triceps after playing 32 percent of the snaps against the Lions (22 snaps) and Tonga suffered a knee injury.
Lopez ended up playing 60 percent (41 snaps) in the Detroit game and Sunday, on a day when the Commanders had 72 snaps, it ballooned to 51 snaps (71 percent), a total that is simply not sustainable.
They’ve also gone up for everyone else. In fact, since Jones’ injury, there have been six instances in two games of linemen playing more than 50 percent and Collier played 49 percent against Detroit. Here are the snaps and percentages for all the defensive linemen in four games:
Justin Jones: 43/69, 35/67, 22/32, IR
Roy Lopez: 23/37, 22/42, 41/60, 51/71
Bilal Nichols: 27/44, 21/40, 42/62, 39/54
L.J. Collier: 22/25, 20/38, 33/49, 42/58
Dante Stills: 25/40, Inactive, 30/44, 39/54
Khyiris Tonga: 16/26, 15/29, 14/21, inactive
Angelo Blackson: 24/33 Sunday after being signed to the practice squad Sept. 10
It’s notable that Blackson played more snaps than Tonga did in any of his three games.
It’s no coincidence the rushing numbers allowed in the last two games against the Lions and Commanders.
After Sunday’s bludgeoning by the Commanders, head coach Jonathan Gannon said, “We gotta tweak some things in the run game.”
The question is what that can be when key personnel are missing and guys are playing too many snaps.
Asked about the increased snaps for the linemen, Gannon said Monday, “I think one of the reasons for that is we had five up, not six, so guys obviously are going to pick up those snaps. When you have six up as opposed to five up, somebody’s eating those snaps, but we will look at it this week and see. We’ll do what’s best in what we think to defend San Fran.”
Defensive coordinator Nick Rallis echoed Gannon’s explanation, saying Tuesday, “Part of that goes into, how many do you have up? This past game there was only five up and that’s gonna distribute the reps a little bit differently. Guys are going to have to take those reps, but you ultimately want to keep it where it’s relatively amongst the group equal just to keep guys at a relatively lower amount. So (it’s) a long season playing in the trenches. It’s hard.
“You want to keep those guys fresh as long as you can. So yeah, you’d like to make it so that a guy’s not worn out after 10 games because he’s been taking a high, high load. So that’s always been our philosophy like that, which honestly comes from JG. He does a really good job with that and it can depend week to week what your numbers look like, how you have to play that game, but I think over the course of the season, you want to make sure the guys are fresh.”
However, one reality is the Cardinals had six active in Weeks 1 and 3 and while they had five active Sunday, they also had only five against the Rams when the largest percentage after Justin Jones was 42 by Lopez. It did help though that the Rams had only 52 snaps in the game.
Meanwhile, Robinson will be expected to be a magic elixir when he returns and he should surely help. However, even if he is able to begin practicing this week, it will have been 41 days since he was injured. Still, if he can play on Sunday, no matter how long, it could help in evening out the snaps.
Oh, did I mention that next up is 49ers running back Jordan Mason, who is the second leading rusher in the NFL with 447 yards (33 behind Baltimore’s Derrick Henry) on 91 carries (4.9 average) and three touchdowns?
In other words … Buckle up!
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