FLASH OF FUTURE
Rosen caps comeback with TD strike to Kirk
Josh Rosen can’t tell you exactly what he said in the huddle before leading the Cardinals on their gamewinning drive Sunday afternoon against the 49ers. The language was just a little too naughty to share.
“Something with some expletives,” the rookie quarterback said after his team’s 18-15 victory at State Farm Stadium. “You’ve gotta leave it up to the imagination.”
Left tackle D.J. Humphries didn’t mind sharing Ro-
sen’s message at all.
“‘We’re about to win this f-----g game,’ that’s what he said,” Humphries said. “Excuse my French. That’s what he said. … I’m with it. I’d been thinking that, so when I hear him say that and it’s echoing from my quarterback, I’m excited. We’re on the same page.”
Rosen backed up his salty prediction by threading a 9-yard pass in the back of the end zone to fellow rookie Christian Kirk for the go-ahead touchdown with just 34 seconds left to play. He then hit Larry Fitzgerald for the two-point conversion and Fitzgerald delivered the exclamation point by spiking the football in celebration, something he’s never done before in his career.
“Nobody has seen that Larry,” Humphries said. “I was really excited to see it.”
Despite a shaky first three quarters by Rosen and an offense now being called by a rookie offensive coordinator in Byron Leftwich, the two came together in nearperfect harmony when it mattered most in the fourth quarter. Rosen led the Cardinals (2-6) on touchdown drives of 75 and 73 yards, and the result was Arizona’s second win of the season, both of which have now come over the 49ers (1-7), who have lost eight in a row to their NFC West rival.
A loss would have been equally harrowing for the struggling Cardinals, who in a span of just three days last week fired their former offensive coordinator, Mike McCoy, and watched star cornerback Patrick Peterson go public with his demands to be traded. How big was this win?
“It’s big,” coach Steve Wilks said. “The great thing about the men in that room is they have great character, even at 1-6. The theme all week was, ‘Don’t allow our perception to become our reality.’ We’re a better team than 1-6 and we went out there and played like it tonight.”
Both sides of the ball deserve credit for this one.
Trailing 15-3 following Robbie Gould’s second field goal of the game for the 49ers, Rosen and the Cardinals got closer with 11:06 left to play when Fitzgerald capped a six-play, 75-yard drive with a 13yard touchdown catch. Fitzgerald helped set it up by snaring a 37-yard bomb from Rosen. San Francisco defensive end Arik Armstead did the Cardinals a favor on that play by adding 15 yards to the end of it when he got called for roughing the passer.
The Cardinals’ defense, meanwhile, forced the 49ers to punt on each of their next two possessions, one of which came about because Cardinals tight end Jermaine Gresham fumbled away the ball after a big gain along Arizona’s sideline.
“It was fun to see us come back and win, but (the fumble) didn’t need to happen,” Gresham said. “I’ve got to do a better job protecting the ball. That can’t happen, especially in a situation like that from a player like me. I can’t do that and hurt the team.”
With running back David Johnson temporarily out of the game getting evaluated for a possible concussion, the Cardinals took over with 2:16 left to play trailing by five points. They picked up a clutch first down with an 11-yard completion from Rosen to Fitzgerald. Then Rosen went to No. 11 again, and the veteran leapt high in the air to bring it down for 20 more yards.
Rosen followed with a 19-yard pass down the right sideline to Kirk and there were completions of 13 and 7 yards to tight end Ricky Seals-Jones and receiver Chad Williams. Facing third-and-9, Leftwich dialed up a pass play for the end zone and Rosen rifled it straight to Kirk for the score.
“That was the same play we ran earlier with the same short motion with Ricky,” said Rosen, who was 11 of 22 for 102 yards through the first three quarters but 12 of 18 for 150 yards and two touchdowns in the fourth. “It was a specific look that I kind of missed a little bit earlier in the game and came back to it, and Christian can tell you, we knew where the ball was going before the ball was snapped.”
Fitzgerald’s reception on the twopoint conversion made it a three-point game, forcing quarterback C.J. Beathard and the 49ers to get the ball within fieldgoal range for Gould despite starting at their own 25 with just a half minute remaining. They got as far as midfield, but then went backward on the last play of the game following a fumble and an incomplete pass.
“We didn’t make the plays we needed to in the end,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said.
For once, the Cardinals did, and things couldn’t have started much slower for
them offensively. Their first possession resulted in a loss of one yard. Their second possession totaled two yards and cost them two points when Rosen was called for intentional grounding in the end zone.
On their third try, it slowly started to come around. A couple of nice runs by Johnson opened up the short passing game, and Leftwich and Rosen decided to use it a bunch. Screen passes were working brilliantly, but the Cardinals couldn’t finish the deal and they had to settle for a 31-yard field goal from Phil Dawson.
It wasn’t until the fourth quarter when the real heroics arrived. If Rosen is as good as NFL scouts and the Cardinals believe, he’ll develop into a franchise-type savior for this organization. He showed flashes of what he’s capable on Sunday when it counted, but there’s going to be growing pains along the way, especially until he develops some real chemistry over time with Leftwich.
Asked how important this win was toward establishing his future pedigree, Rosen shrugged.
“I don’t know. It’s your guys’ job to talk about how important it all is,” he said. “For us, it’s just another win. Whether we win in an awesome fashion like that or blow them out, it’s all the same. It’s just nice we get to go to the bye week with a win. Like I’ve said, baby steps, and have something to move forward on.”
In Fitzgerald’s eyes, the Cardinals clearly have a keeper in Rosen. He’s a kid with plenty of confidence who doesn’t easily get rattled and is going to grow into a superstar. In other words, he’s a lot like a young Fitzgerald.
“Josh is not fazed by things like getting hit or bad plays,” Fitzgerald said. “His emotions never waver. He doesn’t get high, he doesn’t get low. He always just stays even-keeled. That’s a great disposition to have as a quarterback because there are going to be bad plays, there are going to be dropped passes and things that happen during the course of a game. He never lets those affect him.
“He always has that belief in his voice and you can see the conviction in his eyes. It was on full display on those last two drives today.”