Turnovers and Warner, Fitzgerald and Boldin to much for the 49ers.
Frank Gore carried 16 times for 87 yards and two touchdowns, but fumbled to set up an Arizona touchdown. Smith completed 23 of 40 passes for 288 yards and one score.
The game was tied at 7 when Gore fumbled, then Arizona’s Gerald Hayes scooped up the ball and rambled 19 yards to the San Francisco 5. It took three tries, but James scored from the 1 for his first Cardinals touchdown.
After the ensuing kickoff, Davis fumbled and Darnell Dockett recovered at the 49ers 41. Warner’s 28-yard pass to Fitzgerald set up a 6-yard touchdown toss to Anquan Boldin and it was 21-7 with 59 seconds left in the first quarter – exciting a crowd that, for once, was fully supportive of the Cardinals.
A pair of unnecessary roughness penalties against Arizona aided a San Francisco scoring drive. Gore’s 4-yard touchdown run sliced the lead to 21-14. Rackers’ 36-yard field goal put Arizona up 24-14 at the half.
MJ said:
It was such a close game. The best game of week 1 I would say. Frank Gore was more amazing than I thought he would be, and my expectations we set really high. Vernon Davis’ touchdown was nice to see really early as well, as I think it is the momentum behind the team’s perserverence into the last seconds of the game.
The eyesore was our pass defense, as Fitzgerald used and abused Shantae Spencer. I thought one of our biggest weaknesses was ourselves. If VD and Gore did not each fumble the ball, I think we would have won this game. We gave the Cardinals good field position on those turnovers. Then on that insane Arnaz Battle kickoff return to the 5 yard line, we could not score. Another bad incident were the injuries to Larry Allen and J. Jennings. Will they be back next week?
Still, what a game. I am very pleased. Can’t wait till next week. The biggest surprise was Alex Smith. I am not going to praise him yet as he did good in the first pre-season game and sucked in the last 3. I am hoping that is not the case for regular season. He had a great outing today. Let us hope the 49ers have a better one next week and pick up the W.
18 mins after the fact.Davis #6 Pick for President said:
Our Offense was great, our defense sucked. Still, I enjoyed the game and wasn’t sore about the loss. We played good and we are improving. Alex showed his skills and gore was an animal.
23 mins after the fact.scott said:
49ERS next year will be in the playoffs and if the 9ers keep playing hard till the end like they did there is a one in 20 chance i say that the 9ers could get close to getting in the playoffs being 9-7
Dont forget that the 49ers will be playing the the Kansas City (They have no passing game and have lost two major o linemen), Green Bay (that should be an easy win), the Raiders (Win again), New orleans, Detroit; the list is full of teams with no WR combo like the cardinals.
When the 49ers get Harylson back, VD gets all his jitters out, etc.
I predict 8-8 atleast this season
26 mins after the fact.Robert said:
WOW I’m impress… We are making strides our offense is cliking and will improve with time, They really hurt our defense with the fumbles but it should be expected with a young group of players… This upcoming season I think we’ll be looking to improve our Defense…We really need to look at the F.A. and see if we can pick up someone to help our defense. We let this one slip I hope we can still make strides…Rams D looked good againts Denver, if we don’t hurt outselfes I think we can win the game at home… Norv Turner influence on the offense really shows…. I hope Alex keeps this momentum going….
29 mins after the fact.Justin said:
The offense did do well today. The defensive side of the ball really needs to step up. The CB’s just keep on getting beat. I saw some improvement near the end of the game. But it seems that we have most of our problems on third down. We need for our defense to be more explosive and make the stop on the third down.
59 mins after the fact.pat said:
holly smokes we did great today even though we lost. i’m bummed out cuz we lost..The niners did score off the Arnaz Battle Punt return. VD still needs to learn some stuff..like when he dropped that pass. He took his eyes off the ball and looked up field..thats a big no no..i know some veterans do it but i know Davis really really wants to impress us all. Alex Smith looked great today. i’m very impress by ALex Smith. His Decision making was good. And yes Niners could of won if we didn’t have the 2 turnovers. and we could of had that Long TD from Smith to Bryant if HARRIS DIDN”T HOLD…typical Harris…the secondary needs to be fixed. we can’t just keep giving up those yards to the WR’s. And SAMMY DAVIS SHOULD OF HAD THAT INT..it was right too him
our d-line did great. its only our secondary. and we are killing ourselves by not stopping them on 3rd downs.
we just need to correct the simple mistakes.
i’m even more excited for the rest of the season.
60 mins after the fact.Shaun Samra said:
If im correct MJ told me im dislusional and that derek Smith was gonna suck this season. If my memory serves me right it was derek smith who led the team in tackles today and was involved in that warner fumble. But neways the niners look great, if we play like this i cant see anything more than 6 more losses. GO NINERS
!
1 hour after the fact.Eric said:
Hopefully today will shut all the Alex Smith haters up.. The guy looks great… Sad about the loss but I actually had a smile on my face at the end of the game. Looks like we have some great young talent for years to come. After this season spend some money and the draft on the D and we are on our way back to the glory years! Yeaaaaa haaaaaaw!
2 hours after the fact.EezyE said:
Just read this quote off the ESPN.com write up from Edgerrin James..”James said “the game was closer than it should have been. We should have knocked those dudes out of the stadium.”
2 hours after the fact.WTF? He averaged 2.6 yards a carry or something like that. It took him 3 tries to score from the 5 yard line. I think he should shut his mouth next time he has a mediocre performance. The only reason he had any yards at all was b/c he had some many carries. What a chump
aaa said:
ok, the fact is that, we played against a team that has no O-LINE and no D-FENCE. So, even though smith played good it was not enough. Sure many of you are happy only because you are FAMILIAR WITH LOSING…such losers, but let them play against a team that has D-FENSE or a team that has respect, then B proud of the loss. Its the first game and i see them only winning 4 or 5 games. Lets not get too ahead of ourselves. anyway, you’ll see, when the rams runn all over them and pass all day.
2 hours after the fact.Eric said:
aaa likes it in the can
3 hours after the fact.aaa said:
Eric, you said, “After this season spend some money and the draft on the D and we are on our way back to the glory years!” glory years… come on. The Glory years already passed. Glory years= montana, rice, taylor, brent jones, craig, rathman, and ect… those were the glory years. next time, think before you speak…i think the correct term is we are on our way to a good rebuilding stage….ignorant
3 hours after the fact.Straighthate said:
Definite bright spots with a long way to go. Over the next couple years we need some secondary help and another offensive weapon. At least games like today helped ease my mind a bit that Smith isn’t a total bust.
3 hours after the fact.NinerFan408 said:
aaa said arizona has no o-line which i agree with, but to say that they have no defense is totally wrong, last year the cards had the #8 overall defense. and i dont think they lost any players.
NE ways what really needs work is our pass defense and rush, i know we got 3 sacks but i felt warner had too much time and we need to work on 3rd down conversion, i think we only converted one 3rd down. I like the progress i see in the offense though.
3 hours after the fact.hondakillerzx said:
if sammy davis cought that stupid ball it would have been a touchdown cuz no one was in front of him and harris is back to his old tricks again thats 14 points we left on the board not to mention that if sammy davis ran it back arizona wouldnt have scored on that drive. im still impressed at what i saw. gore was amazing and smith looked solid many of those incompletions werent his fault. i dont know about this season but they have a bright future ahead of them
3 hours after the fact.HB said:
Well I am now 0-3 going to 49er games in AZ. Cool Stadium for sure. Niners came to play but made too many mistakes. The fumbles were 14 points. Kwames Holding was poorly timed. the inconsistent pass rush led to big passing plays for AZ but overall the defense played ok. In the second half the cards had one good drive. The Edge was minimized. You can only take so much from a loss but the Niners were close today and showed they can play.
3 hours after the fact.MJ said:
Shaum Samra, I called you delusional and still call you delusional. I said Derek Smith sucked during preseason, and I said I hoped he would do well in regular season. As for today, yes he led the team in tackles but he let a lot of plays happen before some of those tackles were made….
Pat, you were right about that punt return. My bad, when I initially posted I think I was thinking about the drive before the punt return where we attempted a field goal.
As for those saying this game should make a point about Alex Smith: NO, it does not. It was one game. Alex Smith did good today. He also did good in the first pre-season game and sucked in the last 3. I am hoping that is not the case for regular season, but we should all keep open minds. He had a great outing today. Let us hope the 49ers have a better one next week and beat the Rams.
I must say, the biggest surprise of the whole game to me will suprise most of you. When we went for it on 4th down with a minute left in the game, I was dumbfounded! All of last season Mike Nolan would not go for it when it was a 4th down and the game was at stake. Even if we were a touchdown away, he always brought out the punting unit last year. When we went for it today, I fell off the couch! I was exstatic! If ever there was an improvement, it would be that sense entered the Nolan’s brain with respect to the timeclock. That made me happiest today. Let’s hope that keeps on too.
3 hours after the fact.hondakillerzx said:
i found this on 49erswebzone.com ( CB Antrel Rolle had some interesting comments after the game. “Coming down to a Hail Mary at the end, there’s no way it should have been that close. It should have been a 40-to-nothing game. … Misdirection, a lot of trick plays, a lot of throwbacks. We knew they were going to go out and do that, because they couldn’t beat us just playing straight-up football,” said Rolle. ) what an asshole. id expect this from classless organizations like dallas and the raiders, but the fucking cardinals ? they havent won anything or gone anywhere for God knows how long. next time we play were gonna mess them up good. our niners are gonna be hitting like crazy, theres gonna be lots of fireworks guys.
5 hours after the fact.MJ said:
I found this at another fan website that was talking about how the rematch between the 49ers and Cardinals should be interesting. It is a comment by Arizona Cardinal cornerback Antrel Rolle:
It was bad enough that Edgerrin James talked smack after the game, this was insult to injury. Damn I hope we shut these Cardinals out next game! Ah, and it was so close.
5 hours after the fact.MJ said:
Ha, hondakillerzx I think me and you were posting at the same time. Haha.
5 hours after the fact.YAY AREA said:
ANTRELLE IS WAC AND THE EDGE DIDNT DO SHIT…THEY JUST MAD CUZ WE STUCK WITH THEM AND WE COULD’VE ACTUALLY WON THE GAME…AT THEIR OWN HOUSE…BUT YEA WE NEED HELP ON THE PASSING DEFENSE…YEEE YEEE
7 hours after the fact.ShaneO said:
That game was awesome, im happier comming out of that game despite a loss (BUT MUCH IMPROVMENT) than that Rams game last year that we won even tho we sucked
this season could be better than most expected becuase of some of the other shit teams we play along the way and a couple of possible surprises too. but the thing i wanted to point out was that i, unlike most, was fairly impressed with the secondary. i thought harris and spencer played well, and i like that mike adams also. i mean its our pass rush that FUCKING SUCKED on most of those big plays rather than blown coverage. some of those 20+ gains to the WRs there was still good coverage despite Warner having about 35 seconds to throw the ball. i mean everytime they had a big gain Warner had all day back there. Fix the little things, fix the pass rush and i say 9-7 isnt out of the question
17 hours after the fact.