NEW YORK — Arizona Cardinals defensive tackle Darnell Dockett has been fined $15,000 by the NFL for hitting Cincinnati quarterback Andy Dalton below the knees last weekend and another $15,000 for a horse-collar tackle on Bengals running back Bernard Scott.

Dockett was called for 15-yard penalties on each play in the Cardinals’ 23-16 loss last Saturday.

Washington Redskins safety Reed Doughty was fined $15,000 by the league on Friday for striking Minnesota’s Christian Ponder in the head and neck area as the quarterback slid. Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt received a similar fine for hitting Indianapolis quarterback Dan Orlovsky below the knee.

Atlanta Falcons linebacker Curtis Lofton was fined $15,000 for unnecessary roughness for striking New Orleans wide receiver Marques Colston, deemed a defenseless player, in the head and neck area Monday night.

NEW YORK — Arizona defensive tackle Darnell Dockett has been fined $15,000 by the NFL for hitting Cincinnati quarterback Andy Dalton below the knees last weekend and another $15,000 for a horse-collar tackle on Bengals running back Bernard Scott.

Dockett was called for 15-yard penalties on each play in the Cardinals’ 23-16 loss last Saturday.

Washington safety Reed Doughty was fined $15,000 by the league on Friday for striking Minnesota’s Christian Ponder in the head and neck area as the quarterback slid. Houston defensive end J.J. Watt received a similar fine for hitting Indianapolis quarterback Dan Orlovsky below the knee.

Atlanta linebacker Curtis Lofton was fined $15,000 for unnecessary roughness for striking New Orleans wide receiver Marques Colston, deemed a defenseless player, in the head and neck area Monday night.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Arizona Cardinals are a .500 team (7-7) with a chance to finish the season with nine wins and possibly even sneak into the playoffs with a Wildcard berth. For a team that lost six-straight after a Week 1 win, that’s quite an accomplishment. 

When the  Cards were in the midst of the losing streak and they dropped four games by four points or less they didn’t have the feel of a team that would be in the “Suck for Luck” category. As we’ve heard many times now, they didn’t believe they were that bad either.

“After all the games we lost in the fourth quarter in the beginning of the season, we just look back and look at our record and think we’re better than what our record shows,” Darnell Dockett said Sunday. “We just go out and try to show people that our record doesn’t do us any justice.”

Now that 1-6 has turned into 6-1 the same thing can probably be said. The 6-1 record doesn’t do them justice, not when you consider the average margin of victor is just four points and that three of the six wins needed overtime and two required an opponent’s blocked or missed game-winning field goal.

The luck certainly has turned, but perhaps it’s gone a bit too far the other direction to be sustainable.

In the NFL, all that matters is the win, except when you lose and you can find positives from “keeping it close”.

This Cardinals team has been horrible in the first half of games and they are 30th in the league in third down conversions according to Larry Fitzgerald. Kevin Kolb has yet to play more than a half of good football and unfortunately, hasn’t been able to stay on the field enough to improve. John Skelton has 10 interceptions in six games despite his Tebow-like ability to win in the fourth quarter.

The defense has indeed be solid and appears to be legit but the offense is way behind.

The good news is, the players know it. They are not satisfied with a “win is a win” over this 6-1 stretch which is exactly what you want to hear.

“Our defense, I think, is the one single reason we are able to play at that level we have been playing recently…We have done okay, we have been adequate offensively, but enough to get some wins,” Larry Fitzgerald explained.

There is good news and again Larry said it best, “If we play the full game, we will be scary. We would be a force to be reckoned with.”

That’s the question this team needs to answer in the final two games of the season. Can they put a full game together on offense and stop making mistakes and leaving plays on the field? Can the offense show the kind of improvement the defense has or is this team that’s ranked 25th in points scored really just who they are?

Whether they can play a full game on offense is very much an open question with an offensive line that’s given up the fourth-most sacks in the league; a lack of depth at running back with Ryan Williams down for the season; no second star receiver to help take pressure off Fitzgerald; and most importantly, two quarterbacks who have yet to demonstrate they can even play at an average level of competency for the position in the NFL.

It would have been nice to see the Cardinals blow the doors off a fairly mediocre Cleveland Browns team. Instead, we were treated to an exciting, thrilling and  thoroughly unsatisfying overtime win that still leaves more questions than answers about just what this team can do.

But hey, winning close games sure is more fun than losing them!

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Paris Lenon is a survivor. He’s believed to be the only XFL player still roaming an NFL sideline.

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He loves history. He can tell you about Hannibal crossing the Alps or Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon.

He’s made history. He played for the 2008 Lions, who set a league record by going 0-16. The following season, he signed with St.Louis, where the Rams went 1-15 and his personal losing streak reached 24 games.

Still, to guys like Lenon, the losing isn’t personal. The job is, and for that, we should all be thankful.

“When people talk about crossing the Rubicon, they don’t always know what it means,” Lenon said. “It’s the point of no return. As a football player, I invest so much time and energy in the job that there are a lot of things I miss during the season. I don’t get to enjoy some of the functions my kids have at school. I don’t get to pick them up and take them places. I’ve put so much into this that I’ve crossed my own Rubicon.”

Lenon is a quiet, serious, hardcore football player. He’s 34 and knows the score. If he doesn’t take care of business, it will take care of him.

Before he signed with the XFL’s Memphis Maniax in 2001, he sorted mail for the U.S. Postal Service. When he signed with Arizona two years ago, he was considered a temporary solution.

The Cardinals had lost Pro Bowler Karlos Dansby to free agency. They drafted Daryl Washington to take his place. Lenon simply was going to ease the transition, bridging past and future.

Today, Lenon is tied with Washington for the team lead in tackles.

Before the 2011 season, the Cardinals signed former Eagles linebacker Stewart Bradley to a big contract, and it appeared Lenon would be relegated to the bench.

Sunday, Lenon will make his 30th consecutive start for the Cardinals, and has missed only one game in his 10-year career.

“On any team, you’re going to have the marquee guys, the widely recognizable names,” said Lenon, the team’s starting inside linebacker. “But a team and a defense are also comprised of guys that just play ball and do a good job. And that’s what I try to bring to a team.”

There have been many key performers and lucky bounces on this improbable push to the playoffs.

The collective resiliency puts a shine on everyone, coaches included. After Friday’s practice, owner Bill Bidwill shuffled through the locker room in a porkpie hat, stopping to chat with the offensive linemen. You don’t see that very often.

It wasn’t always this way. Remember when Darnell Dockett wasn’t feeling Ray Horton’s defense? When Adrian Wilson was looking feeble, refusing to speak to the local media and encouraging teammates to the do the same?

Unless you’re a member of the national media, Wilson is still strangely mute and aloof. But everyone is making plays. And it’s important to appreciate the efforts of Lenon, who has been doing that from the moment he arrived in Arizona.

He was one of the few ready to run Horton’s defense from Week 1.

“There’s a learning curve, and everybody learns at a different rate,” Lenon said.

“That happens in school, where one kid learns how to read quicker than the other. But I had to be sharp. That’s my responsibility. I have to be clicking on all cylinders mentally because I’m responsible for 10 other guys on the field. I can’t have any confusion.”

Today, Lenon is making $1.9 million a year, a bargain for a man in charge of one of the NFL’s hotter defenses.

He will hear Horton’s voice in his helmet and call out the signals, directing traffic and aligning his teammates.

In all probability, he will make a lot of tackles and leave the field without fanfare.

But that’s Lenon’s game. He’s a history buff who knows how to romanticize the struggles.

He’s a consummate professional who knows how to get through the bad times. He’s one of the more-underrated players on a team rising to relevancy once again.

“We’ve been way too low to feel like we’ve arrived,” Lenon said.

And that’s coming from a good source.

Reach Bickley at dan.bickley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8253. Follow him at Twitter.com/danbickley. Listen to “Bickley and MJ” weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on KGME-AM (910).

Read More: Arizona Cardinals

After Kevin Kolb left the game with a head injury after their first offensive series, John Skelton and the Arizona Cardinals defense upset the San Francisco 49ers 21-19. It was their fifth win in their last six games and kept their playoff hopes alive. 

Kolb was kneed in the back of the helmet by 49ers linebacker Ahmad Brooks on a play in which he was blindsided as he was trying to make a throw. He fumbled on the play, but the Cardinals recovered, and Kolb left the game, never to return.

The first half was, except for one offensive play, complete domination by the 49ers. The Cardinals only had the ball on offense for just over seven minutes of the possible 30. It seemed that the entire half was played on the Cardinals side of the field. Two first quarter field goals gave the Niners a 6-0 lead. 

The Cardinals did get one huge jolt of momentum in the second quarter. After a third down reception by Kyle Williams that was short of a first down, San Francisco lined up for a 50-yard field goal. They ran a fake and completed a pass that would have been for a first down, but the play was called dead because Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt had thrown his challenge flag to contest the catch. Because of an equipment malfunction, there was no replay available, so they did not get charged a time out and retain their challenge. The call would have been upheld, but it eliminated the fake play.

On the ensuing field goal attempt, David Akers missed wide right, so they gave the ball back to Arizona.

On the very next play, John Skelton hit Early Doucet in stride for a 60-yard touchdown that gave the Cards a 7-6 lead.

Two more field goals by Akers in the second quarter had the 49ers leading 12-7 at the half. 

It is notable, though, that one of the biggest plays of the game was a special teams tackle by Rashad Johnson in the first quarter. Ted Ginn returned a punt and got past the first wave of coverage and looked like he was going to score. Long snapper Mike Leach closed the running lane and forced Ginn back toward the middle of the field, where Johnson made the stop inside the five-yard line. The defense held them to a field goal. 

The feeling was that falling behind 10-0 would have been insurmountable.

The second half was a completely different story. 

It didn’t start that way, though. 

San Francisco scored on a 37-yard Frank Gore touchdown run on their first play in the second half to make the score 19-7. The Niners would not score again. 

The next possession for the Cardinals began the turnaround. They went six plays and 80 yards to score a touchdown to pull within 19-14. It was a bad pass from Skelton that looked like was going to be intercepted by San Francisco’s Dashon Goldson, but Larry Fitzgerald jumped in front of him, took the ball away and ran after the catch for a 46 yard score. 

Arizona forced the 49ers to punt after three plays on the next series, and Arizona moved the ball enough to flip field position, as a punt had San Fran starting at their own 10. They would have another three-and-out.

The next possession could have been disastrous. Skelton threw an interception, but the Arizona defense forced another punt. 

Skelton and the Cardinals offense went 78 yards on six plays in the fourth quarter and scored on a three-yard reception by Andre Roberts. That gave the Cardinals their final lead at 21-19. 

From there, the defense shut down the Niners. San Francisco did not get another first down the rest of the way. They had two more three-and-outs and turned the ball over on downs with the final drive.

Skelton finished the game 19/28 for 282 yards, three TDs and two picks. Larry Fitzgerald led the team in receptions and yards. He had seven catches for 149 yards and a score, and he surpassed 1000 yards on the season. It is the fourth straight year he has done so and the fifth time in his career.

Running the ball was difficult. Beanie Wells rushed 15 times for only 27 yards. 

The defense kept Frank Gore in check. He ran for only 72 yards, but 37 of those came on his scoring run. Alex Smith threw for only 175 yards and Arizona sacked him five times. 

Darnell Dockett and Adrian Wilson had great games, as they made plays all over the field. 

The Cardinals are now 6-7 on the season and, with three winnable games left on the schedule, have fans believing that the playoffs are really a possibility. 

Head on over to Revenge of the Birds to get more Cardinals coverage.