The Cardinals have lost a slew of defenders from last year’s unit and played the last two games without their starting quarterback, so they’d have plenty of excuses to point to if they got off to a slow start this season.
There’s no need to pull them out, though. The Cardinals scored 17 points in the second half as the 49ers short-circuited in the final 30 minutes for the second straight week in a 23-14 Arizona victory. That win leaves Arizona at 3-0 on the season and 13-6 since Bruce Arians took over as the team’s head coach before last season, a mark that leaves the Cardinals right next to any teams outside Seattle and Denver in terms of performance since the start of the 2013 season.
The Cardinals haven’t shied away from letting it rip with Drew Stanton playing instead of Carson Palmer and Stanton made Arians look smart for doing so by completing 18-of-33 passes for 244 yards and two touchdowns. Stanton hit on several big plays in the second half and the team looked like they were driving for another touchdown when Larry Fitzgerald fumbled inside the 49ers’ five-yard line.
San Francisco had the ball after that fumble with a chance to drive and win the game, but their offense continued to sputter in the back end of games. The 49ers have not scored a touchdown in the second half yet this season and their one scoring chance on Sunday ended when Phil Dawson’s field goal was blocked. San Francisco had to settle for that kick because Anquan Boldin was flagged for head butting Tony Jefferson (Carolina fans are free to wonder why that’s a penalty all of sudden) and pushed the Niners too far back to get six points.
Boldin’s penalty was one of several personal foul and pass interference calls in the second half that helped seal the 49ers’ fate. Not all of them were good calls and a couple were worse than that, but the Niners did plenty to shoot themselves in the foot all by themselves over the course of the second half. The lack of discipline and the second half fades need to be sorted out if the Niners are going to make another trip to the playoffs.
There are fewer pressing matters in Arizona, where Arians has put together an opportunistic, aggressive team that turns almost every mistake by the opposition into a positive for themselves. Unlike San Francisco, they also finish well as evidenced by their 30-0 edge in the fourth quarter. Those are the kinds of traits that serve you well when you’ve been dealt a tough hand by injuries and they’ve been played perfectly by Arians so far this season.