At Least They Aren't In The Cellar

Arizona beat the 49ers 33-21 on Thursday night. Stanton only completed 11 of 28 passes for 124 yards, which is not encouraging. And 81 of those yards (and both TDs) were to Fitzgerald. Either the Niners have a great secondary which shut down the other receivers, or Stanton just can't get the ball to any of them. On the good news side, David Johnson ran for 157 yards. On the bad news side, Carlos Hyde and Blaine Gabbert ran for over 140 yards against their defense. I don't know what's wrong with their rush defense, unless they're just too small up front to avoid getting steamrolled. Well, they have a week and a half to figure it out

As an aside, I'm enjoying David Johnson's successful season. He's averaging almost 100 yards rushing a game. I know the running game is passe in the NFL now, but on a basic level it'd be nice to see Arizona have a real, productive running back for a whole season. Edgerrin James is the only Cardinals' running back I've seen go for over 1100 yards in one season. And he was usually averaging 3.5 yards a carry, which is awful. Of course, I was pretty excited about the same possibility with Andre Ellington last year, and now he's an afterthought. And there was Beanie Wells before him, Tim Hightower before that. Marcel Shipp, Thomas Jones, Michael Pittman, Garrison Hearst, and those are just the guys the Cardinals drafted. It doesn't even get into the Adrian Murrells and such.