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How Much of a Threat Do the Arizona Cardinals Pose to the 49ers?

The 49ers defense shut down the Jets and the Patriots this season, but those two teams have terrible offenses. They essentially shut down themselves.

Grant Cohn

Sep 29, 2024; Glendale, Arizona, USA; Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray (1) against the Washington Commanders at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Sep 29, 2024; Glendale, Arizona, USA; Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray (1) against the Washington Commanders at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
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On paper, the Cardinals don't pose much of a threat at all.

They're 1-3 and their defense is terrible. So even without Christian McCaffrey, the 49ers should score at least 30 points against Arizona this Sunday considering the Commanders scored 42 against the Cardinals just last week.

But how will the 49ers defense perform against the Cardinals offense?

The 49ers defense shut down the Jets and the Patriots this season, but those two teams have terrible offenses. They essentially shut down themselves. When the 49ers faced the Vikings and Rams, two teams whose offenses aren't bad, the 49ers defense struggled.

Which brings us back to the Cardinals.

The Cardinals' offense currently ranks 12th in yards gained and 13th in points scored. So it's a good offense. They have a terrific running back in James Conner, an explosive rookie wide receiver in Marvin Harrison Jr., a quality tight end Tre McBride who's retuning from injury and an extremely mobile quarterback with a cannon in Kyler Murray.

This Cardinals offense has much more talent than the Rams offense that scored 27 points against the 49ers two weeks.

Of course, Murray isn't as good as Matthew Stafford, who's a future Hall of Famer. But Murray is a tough matchup for the 49ers because he's so mobile and they always struggle to contain mobile quarterbacks.

It stands to reason that the Cardinals will run the ball effectively on Sunday and complete a few long passes. Will that be enough to beat the 49ers?

We'll find out soon enough.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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