49ers (

30) at
Cards (

18)

Game Overview ::

By mike johnson >>

• This is a rematch of an early season game in which Christian McCaffrey went nuts, and the 49ers dominated.
• The 49ers continue to be an unstoppable offense at full strength, scoring 27 or more points in every game this year where all of their key skill players start and finish.
• Arizona’s defense has held its own against struggling offenses but has been destroyed by solid units with good personnel.
• The Cardinals have a 2-2 record since Kyler Murray’s return and are looking to continue growth as a franchise under first-year head coach Jonathan Gannon.
• Trey McBride has emerged as the top receiving threat for Arizona and is becoming one of the top tight ends in the league.

How san francisco Will Try To Win ::

From my Week 2 NFL Edge writeup on the 49ers:

• For most teams, when people are evaluating “how” they play, it is common to reference their run-pass splits and their tempo. To me, the 49ers are a different animal altogether. The way this team is built schematically and personnel-wise, it feels more like a basketball team than a football team. Let me explain. There are five players on a basketball court. In football, the offense has 11 players, but 5 of them are offensive linemen who can’t touch the ball, which leaves six players to share the rock. Quarterback Brock Purdy rarely, if ever, runs the ball, and the 49ers basically ignore one of the five remaining players – whoever is in as their second tight end, third wide receiver, or second running back. This leaves a situation where one of four players (Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, or George Kittle) is touching the ball on basically every play for them. To illustrate my point, in the first three-quarters of the 49ers season-opening win in Pittsburgh, one of those four players touched the ball on 48 of the 53 offensive plays that didn’t end in a sack. Brock Purdy is the “point guard” of this basketball team, and Christian McCaffrey is going to get the most shots, but the “balance” here is not about run vs. pass as much as it is about the fact that they have four game-breaking players you have to account for at all times.

Here we are in Week 14, and really nothing has changed. The 49ers had 50 combined rush and pass attempts last week against the Seahawks. Of those 50 plays, there were only seven times where the ball went to someone outside Purdy and the “Big 4” for San Francisco. Three of those seven plays were runs by backup RB Jordan Mason when the 49ers were up 12 points with less than two minutes remaining. Suffice it to say that the 49ers are going to continue rolling this way for a while.

This week the 49ers travel to play an Arizona team that they already destroyed once this season. Arizona’s defense ranks 31st in the NFL in DVOA and has been an equal opportunity unit this season, ranking bottom-5 against both the run and the pass. The Cardinals have been notably awful against elite and dynamic running backs, surrendering two of the five biggest running back games of the season to CMC and Kyren Williams. This seems to set up as a CMC smash spot, although it is impossible to rule out the 49ers passing game pieces scoring the touchdowns as well. Arizona plays a relatively conservative style of defense, ranking bottom-5 in the league in blitz rate and top-5 in the league in zone coverage rate. Deebo Samuel and George Kittle are theoretically the top options against zone coverage from a schematic standpoint, but Brandon Aiyuk also ranks top-5 in the league in fantasy points per route run against zone, and we’ve seen backs smash Arizona in the passing game as well, so really it’s just a great matchup for the entire 49ers offense. In any regard, the 49ers have scored 27+ points in every game where they were fully healthy on offense, and this week, they are healthy and facing a very bad defense. They should enter this game with their usual game plan and ride their studs to another four or five-touchdown performance.

How arizona Will Try To Win ::