SANTA CLARA — Embarrassing. Ugly. Awful.
Pick a bad adjective and it would probably provide a fitting description of whatever the 49ers just did Sunday in Week 9.
Despite being facing a heavily short-handed Arizona Cardinals team, the 49ers were outmatched and out hustled in a 31-17 loss to extend the team’s home losing streak to eight straight games.
“It’s adversity,” tight end George Kittle said. “It sucks. It definitely does.”
San Francisco (3-5) went into the game as betting favorites after Arizona (8-1) announced starting quarterback Kyler Murray (ankle) and wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins (hamstring) would be inactive. Top defensive end J.J. Watt was placed on IR earlier in the week and starting running back Chase Edmonds was lost on the game’s first play due to injury.
Still, backup quarterback Colt McCoy and the Cardinals carved up the 49ers defense for 437 yards with their 'B' team offense. After the game, Kyle Shanahan had some words for his team in the locker room.
“Just how disappointed I was,” Shanahan of his postgame speech. “Obviously we gotta play a lot better. I talked to the defense a lot about some of the things you guys saw out there. Offensively, I thought we had our opportunity, we just have to make those plays like we did last week. I thought it was there for us, especially in the first half.”
Aside from the clock striking zeroes, the game reached its nadir for the 49ers in the middle of the third quarter, when Cardinals running back Eno Benjamin bowled over cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick for a 21-yard score. Arizona stretched its lead to 24 while Kirkpatrick sat on the turf, wondering what just happened.
Kirkpatrick probably shouldn’t have been in the game but the 49ers benched Josh Norman after he committed a preventable taunting penalty in the first half for jawing with Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury. In a recurring theme for the season, the 49ers simply couldn’t get out of their own way.
“It’s very disappointing,” Shanahan said of the Norman penalty that kept him on the sidelines the rest of the game. “I don’t care what happens, whether the refs are right or wrong, you can’t give them the chance to be wrong. It doesn’t matter to me if he deserved it or he didn’t, it’s that you got it and it’s very easy to avoid those.”
There were other moments of self-sabotage, like when Arik Armstead was flagged for grabbing the opening of McCoy’s facemask on a second-quarter sack that would have forced a punt. Instead, the Cardinals were celebrating a touchdown two plays later.
Cornerback Emmanuel Moseley also had a sorry attempt at a tackle in a one-on-one situation with Conner earlier in the first quarter, but he just grabbed at air near Conner’s ankles as he slipped by for a touchdown.
“It’s one of those ones where you have to move past it quick,” defensive captain Fred Warner said. “It was embarrassing, defensively, what we put on tape.”
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The offense also provided early hiccups, as Kittle and Aiyuk both fumbled the ball on plays that eventually led to 10 first-half points for the Cardinals.
“We continue as an offense to put our defense in a bad spot,” Kittle said. “That is what it is. We gotta get better at that. We gotta eliminate the turnovers and give ourselves a chance, because we’re really shooting ourselves in the foot, game after game after game.”
Defensive end Nick Bosa added: “I think this year with turnovers, we’re not getting them and we’re giving them up too much. That’s a big sign of a losing team, that’s what we are right now.”
So, did the 49ers underestimate the Cardinals without their star players? Shanahan said he harped on the team Saturday night to not let their foot off the pedal, while his players said there was no let-up.
To be fair, San Francisco’s defense is undermanned at this point of the year, as defensive lineman Mo Hurst (calf), safety Jimmie Ward (quad) were out Sunday, with other starters like defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw (knee), defensive lineman Dee Ford (back) linebacker Dre Greenlaw (groin), safety Jaquiski Tartt (knee) and cornerback Jason Verrett (ACL) on the injured reserve.
But there’s no reason that McCoy should have been looking like Murray on Sunday. The second-string signal-caller finished 22-of-26 for 249 yards, a touchdown and picked up some key first downs with his legs. Conner, the backup running back, finished with three scores, including a back-breaking 45-yard touchdown just three plays into the second half.
The 49ers are once again reeling and it won’t get easier next week when the 7-1 Los Angeles Rams come to Levi’s Stadium.
“This one’s gonna suck for about 24 hours,” Kittle said. “We gotta move on from it. It’s a long season. Still got nine games left. If we dwell on this for a week, it’s just going to put us in a big hole.”
