Cards happy to win, but immediate future is bleak
SANTA CLARA, Calif. – A plastic trash can propped open a side door to the Cardinals' locker room on Sunday, allowing outsiders to hear the laughter and whoops of pleasure coming from a team no longer the only winless one in the NFL.
To those players, there was nothing ugly about the 28-18 victory over the 49ers at Levi’s Stadium.
Everyone outside that door, however, should have received hazard pay for watching.
If Cardinals fans are going to stick with this team the rest of the year, they might see what they can do about acquiring morphine pumps. There is going to be considerable pain involved.
The 49ers are beat up and bad. For most of the afternoon, the Cardinals looked worse, at least on offense. That group did nothing on Sunday to provide much hope for the future.
The 49ers had the ball twice as much. They gained twice as many yards and were more than three times better at converting on third down.
Depending on which side of door you were on, the Cardinals won because they are either a bunch of gritty, neversay-die kind of guys, or because the 49ers generously committed five turnovers.
“There’s no such thing as an ugly win in the National Football League, particularly when it’s your first one,” coach Steve Wilks.
It’s a valid point, and Wilks received a game ball for his first victory as coach. It was five weeks in coming, which is why Wilks looked and sounded so relieved afterward.
But the Cardinals did almost nothing on Sunday to suggest they can repeat the process very often this season. Rookie quarterback Josh Rosen completed only 10 of 25 passes, including just two to Larry Fitzgerald. They averaged just 2.4 yards per rush, and running back David Johnson looked pedestrian, rushing for 55 yards on 18 carries and catching two passes for 16 yards.
Offensive coordinator Mike McCoy’s play calls were so predictable it seemed the 49ers knew what was coming before McCoy told Rosen. And receivers dropped three more critical passes after bumbling away five a week ago.
The defense looked like it had never defended a screen pass before and played an astounding 92 snaps, partly because it couldn’t stop the 49ers on third down. That’s the most in a regulation NFL game in almost six years, according to Pro Football Reference.
It was a long, ugly afternoon that somehow ended with the Cardinals 1-4 instead of 0-5.
“Man, I don’t care what victory you call it,” safety Tre Boston said, “as long as you call it a victory.”
It’s an understandable sentiment, but other than winning, there was no significant growth by the Cardinals on Sunday. There might have been had they been able to build upon their first offensive play: a 75-yard touchdown pass from Rosen to fellow rookie Christian Kirk.
It was nifty play design. Fitzgerald ran a deep crossing route, drawing a safety to him. That created space for Kirk, who made a double move to get open.
“We told him we needed a shot that first play and wanted the kind of spark to make something happen,” Rosen said.
But that spark, the third-longest rookie-to-rookie scoring pass in NFL history, lit nothing. The Cardinals gained just 145 more yards.
Rosen missed a handful of open receivers, including Fitzgerald for a 35yard-or-so gain in the first half.
Rosen blamed a lot of the offensive problems on himself.
“I didn’t get a lot of training camp reps and stuff, so we’re working our kinks out now,” he said.
It’s admirable that Rosen is holding himself accountable, but if the Cardinals' offense worked any kinks out on Sunday, I missed it.
The biggest problem is the lack of a run game, and that’s hindering Rosen’s development. The Cardinals’ play-action fakes fool no one, and David Johnson is looking as ordinary as his name.
The Cardinals have gained no more than 263 yards in a game this season and have converted only 26 percent of third downs.
It’s ironic the Cardinals won with defense because the 49ers gained 447 yards, converted 10 of 17 first downs and had the ball for 40 of 60 minutes.
Most of the credit should go to end Chandler Jones, who had a strip sack and a fumble recovery and batted down a pass on a two-point conversion attempt.
About the best thing that could be said about the Cardinals' offense is it had five fewer turnovers than the 49ers.
The bright side Sunday? The only thing worse than playing poorly against a bad team is losing.
Reach Somers at kent.somers@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Twitter @kentsomers. Hear Somers every Friday between 4 and 4:30 p.m. on The Drive with Jody Oehler on Fox Sports 910 AM.