Arizona Cardinals: Loss To San Francisco 49ers All but Ends Their Season

The Arizona Cardinals season may just hav ended last night, at home to San Francisco.

The 49ers, who were shut out by Tampa Bay just over a week ago, rebounded against the Cardinals to secure a valuable 27-6 win against Arizona.

It had been called a must–win game for both teams, and following a loss by Seattle, saw the winner draw within one game of first place in the division, the looser slip further behind with one less game with which to catch up in.

In spite of the importance of this game, however, the Cardinals never looked like contenders in this game.

A missed field goal at the end of the 49ers opening drive gave Arizona a ray of hope, but their opening offensive play saw Beanie Wells and Derek Anderson combine to put the ball on the ground.

Though the post-game statistics credit Anderson, not Wells with the fumble, it's hard to place the blame solely on either man. The handoff by Anderson was appalling, and the ball was in a terrible position, but poor arm positioning by Wells did not make Anderson's job any easier.

The fumble was recovered by San Francisco, effectively restarting their drive where they left off. Moments later, a picture-perfect pass to Michael Crabtree from third-string QB Troy Smith, and ensuing extra point saw the 49ers take a seven-point lead, which never really looked in jeopardy.

This set the tempo for the game. Arizona seemed unable to stop San Francisco on the ground, and on the rare occasions where they did throw the ball, the Cardinals all too often allowed them to complete those too. 

In spite of loosing star running back Frank Gore to a hip injury, which looks set to keep him inactive for the remainder of the season, the 49ers, with resurgent running back Brian Westbrook, dictated the pace of the game throughout. 

The Cardinals had more than a few breaks, Michael Adams intercepting a tipped pass, and the Cardinals successfully blocked the Niners second field goal attempt, but Arizona's struggling offense never looked able to capitalize on these.

The closest the Cardinals came was three minutes before the close of the half, when Larry Fitzgerald appeared to have caught a touchdown pass, however closer inspection revealed that Fitzgerald was unable to maintain control of the ball throughout the process of the catch, and even if he had, there was suggestion that his elbow had come down out of bounds.

For the remainder of the game, San Francisco dominated offensively and defensively, showing little evidence of the stuttering team who had lost seven of their previous 10 games.

In spite of the on-field drubbing the Cardinals received, Arizona's lowest moment came when the Monday Night Football crew caught quarterback Anderson and guard Deuce Lutui sharing a private joke on the sidelines, with Anderson clearly laughing and smiling in spite of his teams humiliating loss.

During the postgame interviews, Anderson was questioned about the incident. 

He initially denied the incident, telling reporter Kent Somers of the Arizona Republic:

"It wasn't funny—I wasn't laughing about anything."

When Somers pointed out that he was caught on by the TV crew clearly laughing, he cut off the reporter and added 

"Okay, that's fine. That's fine, that's fine, that's fine. That's fine. I'm not laughing about it. You think this is funny? I take this [bleep] serious! Real serious! I put my heart and soul into this [bleep] every single week!"

He went on to add, "I'm' just telling you right now what I do every single week! Every single week! I put my freakin' heart and soul into this, I study my ass off! I don't go out there and laugh! It's not funny! Nothing's funny to me! I don't want to go out there and get embarrassed on Monday Night Football in front of everybody!" Before storming out of the press conference.

When asked about the incident, Coach Whisenhunt admitted that he hadn't seen the incident, but would be disappointed if he found out it was true. He added that the mood on the sideline was not jovial, and that in his own conversations with Anderson, he had not given him any feeling that his quarterback was not serious about the situation.

It's hard to know for sure what went down on the sidelines, and how seriously Anderson does take his role—we saw a single moment with no context. Sure it looked bad, but his refusal to acknowledge the problem, or give us any kind of context, and the lack of respect shown for the reporter, and indeed the fans, must surely be the final nail in Anderson's career as a Cardinals starter.

It is hard to put all of the blame for the Cardinals loss on the players.

Coach Whisenhunt has been questionable as the play-caller for the Cardinals.

He has regularly spoken of the fact that Anderson is not Kurt Warner, and that they can't continue to call plays as if he is, and about the strength of their running game. However, he continues to call passing plays over two-thirds of the time, more than any team in the league, even though they have a QB amongst the worst passing stats in the league. 

What's more is that his play-calling duties clearly affect his ability to carry out the other roles a head coach must complete, as evidenced by the fact that he was unaware of anything going down on the sidelines between Anderson and Lutui.

It is impossible to discount the affect that Whisenhunt has had on this team, and his job should not be in jeopardy over this, but to put all of the blame on the players is to discount the amount of influence and affect a head coach really has on the outcome of a game.

Offensively and defensively, improvements must be made in the offseason, but this must not just come on the field; Whisenhunt must find coaches who he can trust to call good offensive and defensive plays. He must not continue to try and do everything himself, because it is clearly not working at this point.

It is important to remember that the Cardinals, on paper at least, are, in spite of the odds, not completely out of contention in the NFC West. They are still only two games back and have five games remaining, three of them at home, two of them against divisional rivals, all of them against teams with loosing records. Three of them which are worse, or equally as bad as their own, and one of them against a team who will almost certainly end the year with the worst overall record.

Of the five remaining teams the Cardinals will play, they have combined to win only 16 games between them, and more than a few of those have come against each other.

None of our divisional rivals boast such a simple run to the playoffs, however, on the evidence of current form, there is little or no evidence to suggest that the Cardinals have any real chance of winning the division, or, if on the outside chance that they do, doing any kind of damage in the post season.