Cardinals have few highlights in blowout
The Arizona Cardinals gave up a home game at State Farm Stadium to be center stage with the San Francisco 49ers on Monday night in Mexico City, on the eve of the country’s national men’s soccer team’s FIFA World Cup opener.
The atmosphere certainly felt like a big futból match in a stadium that has hosted so many, Estadio Azteca. And Will Hernandez, the Cardinals’ offensive lineman who’d wanted so much to play in front of family in Mexico, from where his parents came, ran out of the tunnel carrying the Mexican flag.
The Cardinals made a few plays, but couldn’t stop the 49ers’ wealth of skill position players and lost a critical NFC West game 38-10, dropping them to 4-7.
“I mean, it’s just a lot of things you’ve got a lot of variables you have to account for, but you know, there’s no reason for that,” linebacker Zaven Collins said. “Even with all that, there’s no reason for the game to be how it was.”
The loss leaves the Cardinals in a very difficult spot, if they weren’t there already. With six games left to play, they will need a winning streak to get back into playoff contention.
That seems hard to imagine after Monday night.
“That’s a really good team. We knew we had to play as good as we’ve played all year,” Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury said. “We’ve got to flush it. We’ve got a short week with the Chargers coming in. That’s what we talked about. We’ve got to play a lot better, got to improve in a lot of areas in a short time. It’s going to be a lot of mental preparation going into Sunday’s game before our bye. We’ve got to find a way to get it corrected.”
Maybe it was the altitude, with Mexico City more than a mile above sea level. Maybe it was the Cardinals being shorthanded due to injuries. Or maybe the 49ers are starting to get hot.
All applied, it seemed.
“Everybody was tired. You could see both teams were getting winded at times, but it wasn’t anything that I felt was a game changer,” Kingsbury said when asked about the altitude.
Colt McCoy made his second consecutive start at quarterback with Kyler Murray held out with a hamstring injury. The hope for the Cardinals was that McCoy could guide the offense to another win after a solid performance last week against the Los Angeles Rams, but the two plays that stood out involving McCoy were a thrown interception that led to a second-quarter 49ers touchdown, and a miscommunication with wide receiver Greg Dortch on fourth-and-3 in the third quarter with the Cardinals down 24-10.
Wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins had another big game for the Cardinals with nine catches for 91 yards, plus a taunting penalty after a catch. McCoy threw for 218 yards.
One team had to come away with a successful night in front of an appreciative crowd of mostly 49ers fans, and it was San Francisco. Former Arizona State star Brandon Aiyuk caught two of Jimmy Garoppolo’s four touchdown passes, Deebo Samuel ran for a score and tight end George Kittle caught touchdown passes of 39 and 32 yards.
The 49ers improved to 6-4 and grabbed a share of first place in the division.
Right before kickoff, rain began to fall. The Cardinals began to click on offense on their second drive of the game, McCoy connecting with Hopkins for a pair of 17yard gains. Arizona got a field goal out of the possession for the first points of the game with eight minutes left in the first quarter.
The 49ers got help from an iffy facemask penalty on the Cardinals’ Jonathan Ledbetter, and a couple of big gains, to score the game’s first touchdown early in the second quarter for a 7-3 lead. Aiyuk caught the seven-yard touchdown pass from Garoppolo.
A turning point was a pass from McCoy off James Conner’s hands and into those of defensive back Jimmie Ward, who set up the 49ers in Cardinals territory. San Francisco needed only three plays to score, Garoppolo underthrowing Kittle but completing the pass and Kittle running free into the end zone.
The 49ers took a 14-3 lead, but the Cardinals had an answer, and it came from an unlikely source.
Dortch, who’d started the season with good production given an opportunity to play, had one catch in the past two games. But he gained 47 yards with a catch and run to put the Cardinals in the red zone midway through the second quarter, and Conner ran two yards for a touchdown to get the Cardinals back in the game.
Dortch finished with nine catches for 103 yards, though he was headed to the locker room near the two-minute warning with team staff.
Back on defense, the Cardinals had to burn two timeouts and Isaiah Simmons and Markus Golden were shaken up with inside of two minutes left in the half. The 49ers kicked a field goal and the Cardinals couldn’t move the ball with 43 seconds and timeout before halftime.
Simmons and Golden both returned to start the third quarter.
The 49ers came out running the ball with success, then called a delayed handoff and end around for Samuel, who rumbled 39 yards for a touchdown with a convoy of blockers leading him. That gave the 49ers a 24-10 lead, and the Cardinals couldn’t come back.
Cardinals defensive lineman Zach Allen avoided any talk of the Cardinals’ season going nowhere.
“There’s definitely more of a sense of urgency,” he said.
Aiyuk’s second touchdown catch right before the end of the third quarter sealed the win for the 49ers. Then Kittle caught a pass near the sideline and steamrolled the rest of the way for a 38-10 lead with still 10:17 to play in the game.
Trace McSorley finished the game at quarterback for the Cardinals.
“We’ve just got to put our best foot forward,” McCoy said. “It’s a short week, and figure out a way to get a win before the bye. And that’s really our only focus and our only goal.”