Christian Kirk showed he has plenty of speed on his big touchdown.

Rookie receiver blows past 49ers defense for 75-yard catch and run

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Christian Kirk knew it was coming for the past two days. As far as Josh Rosen slung the football, it must have felt like 48 hours before the pass finally came down into Kirk’s hands, too.

The only thing Kirk had to do was make sure he caught it, or the Cardinals’ surprise attack on their first play from scrimmage on Sunday would have been an epic failure. Not catching that 75-yard touchdown bomb never crossed the rookie wide receiver’s mind.

“No,” Kirk said. “In that scenario, there were no negative thoughts going through the head.”

Kirk said the Cardinals decided on Friday that they would open with that exact play they had been running in practice. It worked to perfection, even though that was about the only thing that looked pretty on offense during Arizona’s 28-18 victory at Levi’s Stadium.

“Obviously I was excited. All we had to do was execute it.”

It wouldn’t have panned out had veteran receiver Larry Fitzgerald not managed to lure the safety in his direction long enough to become a decoy. Once that happened, it was too late. Kirk gained the separation he needed on the cornerback and it was a touchdown.

“I ran a deep crossing route and the safety jumped me,” Fitzgerald said. “I saw him looking at me and he jumped me. Christian did a great job double moving the corner to get some separation and accelerating with the ball in the air. Josh stood in there and made a throw we’d seen him make countless times in his college career. That was exciting. It’s always nice when it works out the way you designed it to work out.”

Cardinals coach Steve Wilks said he hopes the long touchdown will make people stop talking about Kirk’s supposed lack of speed.

That was the knock on the second-round pick coming out of Texas A&M – that he wasn’t fast enough to be used as a true outside wide receiver.

“I don’t understand the question mark that was over him coming out of the draft talking about his speed,” Wilks said.

“You saw that today. He’s an inside guy, an outside guy. We do a good job of moving him around and trying to get him in position to be successful.”

Breaking it down

The 49ers won’t need to watch hours of film to find out why they lost to the Cardinals. It was turnovers, five of them.

The 49ers beat the Cardinals badly in nearly every other statistical category.

“You look at a lot of those things, it’s hard to find out how you lost a game,” coach Kyle Shanahan said. “Then it’s very easy when you look at the turnover column. I haven’t been part of any game, I don’t think many people have, where five turnovers to zero leads to a win.” The Cardinals didn’t commit a turnover.

“We had some bright spots, but overall five turnovers is hard to win an NFL game with,” 49ers tight end George Kittle said. “We had the yards and possession, but I’m pretty sure that when you have over three turnovers and they don’t have any, the chances of a winner go severely down.”

A fast start

Fitzgerald caught only two passes for 35 yards, but he played an important role in the 75-yard touchdown. The problem was the Cardinals gained only 145 yards after that play.

“Fireworks came early and then they came late,” Fitzgerald said.

The late fireworks came thanks to two turnovers forced by the Cardinals' defense in the fourth quarter. Linebacker Haason Reddick caused a fumble that linebacker Josh Bynes returned for a touchdown. On the 49ers’ next possession, cornerback Bené Benwikere intercepted a pass and returned it 21 yards to the 49ers 26. The Cardinals turned that into a touchdown.

As for Fitzgerald, he’s in one of the worst three-game stretches of his career with just seven total receptions the past three weeks. Rosen said that’s a matter that needs to get resolved.

"For the most part, he was pretty involved. I just missed him on a naked buoy,” Rosen said. "I just kind of overthrew him a little bit. That could have been a 34yard completion right there. I missed him on a thirddown conversion, too. I mean, a couple little things here, little things there. From an outside eye, sometimes it looks one way, but from the inside, I definitely made a lot of mistakes I’m working on.”

Golden, Nkemdiche out

Throughout the week, Wilks said he expected both defensive end Markus Golden and defensive tackle Robert Nkemdiche to play on Sunday despite missing practice time because of knee and foot issues, respectively. When it came time to make a decision, Wilks opted to hold both starters out and rest them until next Sunday’s game at the Vikings.