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Loss to Cardinals Exposes 49ers in Bid to Repeat as NFC Champions - Bleacher Report
Sep 14, 2020 1 min, 35 secs

The list of teams that have made it back to the Super Bowl after losing it the preceding year is not a long one.

When running back Raheem Mostert took a short pass and blazed 76 yards for a score in the first quarter, the 49ers were up 10-0, and it looked like the team might cruise to victory.

But San Francisco would score just one more touchdown the rest of the way in an offensive performance that was more than a little disconcerting.

In last year's march to the Super Bowl, the 49ers led the NFC in rushing, averaging 144.1 yards per game.

San Francisco came up short of that mark Sunday against the Cardinals, though not by a ton.

Those three backs combined to post 22 carries for 98 yards—not terrible, but also not what the 49ers are accustomed to on the ground.

With a powerful offensive line and a Pro Bowl fullback, it was a situation that was money for San Francisco last year.

With the run game operating at less than peak efficiency, additional pressure was placed on the 49ers' passing attack.

And at first glance, quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo didn't have a terrible game.

But almost half of Garoppolo's passing yards came on that long catch-and-run by Mostert and a 41-yard catch by fullback Kyle Juszczyk.

He completed just 57.6 percent of his 33 pass attempts—a significant factor in San Francisco converting just two of 11 third-down attempts.

The 49ers actually surrendered more yards defensively (404) than the Cardinals gave up on average a season ago (402).

Arizona piled up 11 more first downs than San Francisco, converted half its third-down tries and held the ball about three minutes longer than the 49ers.

The 49ers just kept doing the same thing over and over despite the fact that it wasn't working.

The 49ers are already a game back of the Cardinals and arch-rival Seattle Seahawks, who pasted the Atlanta Falcons in Week 1?

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