Rapid reactions: Cardinals fall for 7th time in last 8 games with blowout by 49ers

The Arizona Cardinals lost big to San Francisco after the 49ers took no time at all to get a big play on the board.

They took the opening kickoff 98 yards and found the end zone on the next play. About five minutes later, Arizona already faced a double-digit deficit.

That was before Arizona set a franchise record for penalties, which at different points gave San Francisco a free retry on a field goal to end the first half and negated a touchdown that would’ve made it a one-score game in the third quarter.

The 41-22 loss was the second straight blowout by a divisional opponent after Seattle won 44-22 the previous week. Arizona has lost seven of its last eight after starting 2-0.

Rapid reactions: Cardinals’ season continues to go down the drain

John Gambadoro, co-host of Burns & Gambo:

So that is three hours of our lives we cannot get back. Pure torture watching this one as Arizona gets blown out by a divisional opponent for the second consecutive week.

Look I hate to say this, but this team is giving me 2024-25 Suns vibes. Just a hard team to watch, to get behind, to believe in. One Cardinals fan on X tweeted me and said “I hate this team” — that is how a lot of Suns fans felt last season.

The Cardinals came into this season with high expectations, but have done nothing but disappoint. The end of this season cannot come soon enough — it has been nothing but a lost year as the injuries and losses mount. That the Cardinals had nothing to really play for by Halloween and now for the next seven weeks we will be looking at draft positioning is a testament to just how bad this season has been. No one saw this coming. At least no one I know. But here we are.

The Cardinals are 3-7 with seven games left and are likely to finish with somewhere between four and six wins. They have unofficially locked up last place in the NFC West.

The Suns needed a complete reset and now the questions on what the Cardinals will need will occupy a lot of our time and effort over the next few months. The close losses suck but you can live with it to a certain extent. These last two weeks, down 35-0 to Seattle and down 35-10 to San Francisco is inexcusable.

The Cardinals are 0-4 in the division! They have two games left against the first-place Rams so are we looking at another 0-6 in the division, which they did two years ago? If that happens, we are looking at three years of 15 losses in 18 division games. Something has to give here. I ask myself what is the identity of this football team? I don’t have an answer. Today, they set a franchise record for most penalties that dated to 1936. What I want the Cardinals to be and what they are right now are just complete polar opposites. 

Dave Burns, co-host of Burns & Gambo:

For a moment — a fleeting moment — the Cardinals looked like they were prepared to respond to last week’s humiliation in Seattle. After falling behind 13-0 vs. the 49ers (and giving up a game opening 98-yard kickoff return), the Cardinals went on a drive that ended with a Bam Knight touchdown run. In that moment, there was the faintest whiff of fight. But like this game, it faded quickly as the Cardinals slogged their way through debilitating penalties, poor special teams play, costly turnovers and a couple of big time defensive breakdowns.

Jonathan Gannon simply could not afford to have this kind of an effort out of his team. He needed to present a level of preparedness that proved last week was the exception. Instead, last week now looks like the beginning of the end. And by that I don’t mean the season; that ended some time ago. I’m talking about Jonathan Gannon having the focused attention of his football team. If that has drifted out of sight with seven full games remaining, the Cardinals might have to make a most unexpected decision.

This season was always going to be about forward progress and how much of it we (but mostly they) would find acceptable. Backwards was not on the table. Now that it’s here we’ll find out soon enough what the consequences will be.

Tyler Drake, Cardinals reporter and co-host of Cardinals Corner:

I’m going to keep this one short and sweet… Two bad divisional losses in two straight weeks. The wheels are seriously coming off for the Cardinals with no solution in sight. Can this coaching staff make it through the season fully intact? It’s seriously up for debate after this one. The seat is undoubtedly getting warm.

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