Cardinals silver linings and sore spots from loss to 49ers

The Arizona Cardinals for a second straight week couldn’t put together four quarters of consistency in Sunday’s 36-30 loss to the San Francisco 49ers.

On one hand, the Cardinals now sit 1-2 on the year and are back at the bottom of the NFC West with some obvious issues.

On the other, there’s some positives to take away from head coach Mike LaFleur’s third game on the job. And yes, that includes Jeremiyah Love.

A look at the silver linings and sore spots from Sunday’s loss to San Francisco:

Cardinals silver linings

– Jeremiyah Love’s usage

After weeks of a healthy split with Tyler Allgeier, Love got his first opportunity as Arizona’s feature back on Sunday.

The rookie moved well in the role, racking up 90 yards on 21 carries and 19 yards and his second career touchdown on five catches.

And while there are some things to clean up (more on that later), it was a big step in his NFL progression and should have Cardinals fans excited.

“I thought he got in a groove right there. Just like I told him, ‘Just keep trusting your reads, keep taking the ball,'” LaFleur told reporters postgame. “These guys gotta go play their game and see it and play fast. I thought he did that. Just didn’t get any broken for more than eight yards. I thought he did a great job. I thought he handled the workload well. We’ll see what it is moving forward.”

Love accounted for 26 touches in the game, more than doubling his season total through the first two games. Allgeier, meanwhile, had six on the afternoon.

It’s hard to imagine this being the norm on a weekly basis given LaFleur’s philosophy of rotating guys in and keeping them fresh, but it could lead to a bigger split between the rookie and veteran moving forward.

– Marvin Harrison Jr. shows up in the stat sheet

Should we be screaming from the rooftops about Harrison’s three catches for 40 yards? No. Those numbers should be easy to obtain for a 2024 first-round pick.

Was he at the top of the pass-catching pecking order? Not at all, with Trey McBride and Michael Wilson leading the way for Arizona.

But after two weeks of quiet on-the-field production and loud chatter off of it — drummed up even more by his one-target outing last week — it was nice to see the wide receiver catch a few passes again.

Marvin Harrison Jr. with a big gain on 3rd and long 💪@AZvsSF on FOX/FOX One
Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/RcygGdHTwv

— NFL (@NFL) September 27, 2026

“It’s awesome. We’re obviously finding our mojo and stuff like that and finding more ways to get him involved in the offense,” quarterback Jacoby Brissett said. “I thought when opportunity called today, he made every one of them count. I know he’s going to continue to get better and I’m going to continue to get better for him.”

Even with plenty of other playmakers, that stat line has to be the baseline for Harrison moving forward.

– Second half bounce back

As LaFleur told reporters postgame, “there are no moral victories” in the NFL. There are, however, things to take away from Sunday’s loss.

One of the biggest was the team’s fight in the second half.

Despite getting thoroughly outplayed in the first half and watching San Francisco open up the second with a touchdown, Arizona hung in and looked like the better team for most of those final two quarters.

Had it not shot itself in the foot early on, we could be talking about a different outcome. There was a stark difference between halves.

“We got to move forward. We got to get better. We got to improve the stuff that we’re not doing well,” LaFleur added.

That they do.

The sore spots

– The common culprit

In what feels like a weekly issue, the Cardinals again were snakebitten by penalties.

While offensive pass interference calls on Harrison and tight end Trey McBride were iffy at best, Arizona was still very sloppy on that side of the football. As a team, Arizona committed 10 for 86 yards.

Most of those came in the first half, helping dig the Cardinals into a hole they couldn’t fully climb out of.

“It’s the story of the game. We couldn’t overcome the penalties. … We were moving the ball. We weren’t getting explosives, but we were efficient. Our runs were hitting, but the penalties were knocking us back, and that absolutely killed us,” LaFleur said.

“In the second half, we didn’t have penalties. For the most part, we played pretty clean and scored points.”

That they did, with Arizona flagged just twice across the final two quarters.

The results speak for themselves, with the Cardinals finding life and making a game out of what looked like the makings of a beatdown.

How much different would the final score had been with a cleaner first half from the Cardinals?

“Look at the first half and every time we got something going, we had self-inflicted wounds. Versus good teams, you can’t do that. You can’t beat yourself and try to beat them,” Brissett said.

– Dynamite still needed in the run game

Among the most glaring stats in Arizona’s loss to Seattle last week was the inability to push the ball downfield with explosives.

The furthest pass thrown in that Week 2 dismantling was for nine yards!

That wasn’t the case in Santa Clara, with Brissett finding Wilson, McBride and Harrison for chunk plays.

The same can’t be said in the run game.

After seeing just one explosive on that side of the ball with the game well out of reach, Arizona failed to record a rush of at least 10 yards on Sunday.

That can’t happen if the Cardinals want to turn the tide under LaFleur.

– Josh Sweat and the pass rush

Maybe the Cardinals should have dealt Sweat after all. Because at this rate, his trade value is plummeting.

While defensive coordinator Nick Rallis said he believed Sweat was playing good ball for the franchise after two weeks of little to no production, the pass rusher continues to largely be a no-show in the backfield or on the stat sheet.

On Sunday, he had more penalties than tackles. His first sack of the year? That’s still to be determined.

If Arizona hopes to be competitive this year and turns things around defensively, it needs more out of Sweat and the rest of its pass rushers.

– Defense out of the gates

Speaking of the defense, it’s not doing the team any favors at the start of games.

Through three weeks, Arizona’s defense has allowed three opening-drive touchdowns to opposing offenses. Two of those were of the 80-yard variety.

That trend must end if the Cardinals want a realistic chance at getting back in the win column.

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