The NFL tagged two Arizona Cardinals with fines coming out of their Week 6 win over the Los Angeles Rams.
Outside linebacker Eku Leota was docked more than $6,000 for a blindside block on a punt return, while tight end Teagan Quitoriano took a nearly $7,000 hit for a leg-whip block. The league fined Leota $6,361 and Quitoriano $6,750.
That adds to a bigger season-long total for Arizona, whose players have now been fined more than $50,000 overall.
Around the league, the NFL has issued fines on 166 of 15,203 plays this regular season.
The Cardinals’ Week 6 performance was a major upset and pushed them to 2-4 after their second win at SoFi Stadium. And from the coach’s viewpoint, the offense has made real progress since opening week.
Head coach Mike LaFleur said the Cardinals have taken steps forward, especially in the run game, while noting there’s still more to clean up.
“That’s a good question. I do think in some aspects our run game has grown from a variation standpoint in terms of what we’re doing schematically and then how those guys are executing, but there are still aspects of our run game we need to improve," he told reporters this week.
"I think the operation’s the one that is the biggest. There's no yards that go with operation in terms of what you guys can see, but we know that when we’re operating at the level that we’re capable of it does lead to yards, which leads to points, which leads to obviously the result that we’re all hunting up, so I'd say those two aspects. I think we’ve, for the most part all year, have done a good job of keeping the ball in play in terms of getting our completions and all that.
"I think there’s a lot of room for us still to continue with our YAC in terms of our drop steps and our transitions and all that. As long as we’re here that standard’s never going to change.
We’re always going to be hunting to be number one in the league at stuff like that. It does take talent to be good at that.
I’m not going to say that that stuff takes no talent, but it’s definitely a skill set that we can continue to work on.”
Arizona now turns to Week 7 against the Denver Broncos, hoping to carry that momentum forward.
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