Looking to end skid against Cardinals

Kyle Shanahan is being universally hailed as brilliant, but Mr. Young Genius looked lost Tuesday when posed a basic question: What didn’t he like about his team’s last game?

“Um,” Shanahan began haltingly before going into fullon stall mode: “Um, I’m struggling to remember the game right now, so you threw me off. But I mean, um, yeah, I didn’t like the turnover we had. The interception. Um, obviously, the missed (extra point). Um, we punted a few times. It wasn’t perfect.”

For those who didn’t see the video of the 49ers’ head coach’s news conference: Shanahan smiled at the end of his answer, as if to say, sorry, but, um, yeah, there wasn’t much the guys did wrong in that 5113 public humiliation of the Panthers on Sunday.

Based on that performance, which was preceded by six straight wins to open the season, the 49ers (70) will visit Arizona (341) on Thursday night with an air of invincibility.

Consider: They own the NFL’s topranked defense, its sixthranked offense, have the league’s fewest penalties, have dusted opponents by a combined score of 20777, and just followed a shutout of Washington by scoring their most points since 1993 on Sunday.

Arizona head coach Kliff Kingsbury’s assessment of their offense and defense?

“They’re both playing at elite levels,” he said.

The 49ers are playing at a level not reached since Jim Harbaugh was their head coach, which happens to the be the last time they beat the Cardinals. They have lost eight straight to Arizona, their last victory coming Dec. 28, 2014, in Harbaugh’s final game.

The Cardinals are the only NFC West team the 49ers haven’t beaten in Shanahan’s twoplus seasons, and they’ve lost by identical 1815 scores in their past two trips to the desert: In 2017, the 49ers lost on Larry Fitzgerald’s touchdown catch with 32 seconds left before they squandered a 12point, fourthquarter lead last year.

So how eager are the 49ers to end that losing streak?

“I didn’t even know (about) that,” quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo said when it was mentioned Tuesday.

Garoppolo can be excused. He hasn’t played against the Cardinals as a member of the 49ers, but he did get his first career win in Arizona in 2016 as a member of the Patriots.

Still, his unawareness of those failures against the Cardinals is consistent with the vibe in the locker room: That was the old 49ers, and it has nothing to do with us.

There is a widespread public belief Arizona’s streak will end Thursday: The 49ers opened as sevenpoint road favorites and that number has swelled to 10.

However, the ingredients are in place for a letdown, even if not a loss. They are playing away from home on a short week with a muchanticipated meeting against the Seahawks looming Nov. 11. In addition, there is the matter of the Cardinals, whose threegame winning streak was snapped Sunday with a loss in which they trailed at New Orleans (71) by eight points early in the fourth quarter before falling 319.

After last year’s 313 season, rookie quarterback Kyler Murray, the No. 1 pick, has provided hope for the Cardinals, and he also provides a running threat the 49ers’ defense hasn’t faced this season. Murray has 279 rushing yards, second most among QBs, and 27 more than the combined total of the first seven quarterbacks to start against the 49ers.

The 49ers rank third in the NFL in sacks per game (3.9) and have had at least three sacks in four straight games for the first time since 1998.

So is Murray uniquely equipped to handle their pressure?

“I don’t know if anybody is, the way they’re playing right now,” Kingsbury said. “They’ve really dominated up front. Every team they’ve faced. They’ve gotten constant pressure. … We’ve got to have a great plan.”

It appears the Cardinals don’t have a great chance. Even with Murray’s elusiveness, they’ve allowed the league’s sixthmost sacks, and they also appear illequipped to handle the 49ers’ secondranked rushing attack: Arizona has allowed the league’s fifthmost rushing yards.

Shanahan insisted the Cardinals, ranked 29th in total defense, are better than their rankings. But it sounded like the coach who had trouble summoning his team’s shortcomings was creatively trying to talk up an opponent’s strengths.

“I never look at the numbers right away, I just watch the tape and I thought they were ranked very high in a lot of (defensive) areas,” Shanahan said. “I know they haven’t been. Teams have gotten some yards and some big plays and things like that, but when you turn on the tape, I see as good of a defense as we’ve played this year.”