49ers start season the same way they ended it in the Super Bowl: a fourth-quarter dud
It started with smoke hovering over Levi’s Stadium and its sea of empty red seats in a cavernous, concrete fortress.
The Arizona Cardinals huddled in the locker room during the national anthem while the 49ers lined up on the south goal line during the playing of “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” They bore the the expression of a group out to prove there would be no Super Bowl hangover.
Sunday was San Francisco’s first game since blowing a 21-10 fourth-quarter lead against Kansas City on Feb. 2 in a Super Bowl spinout. The early signs in this curious campaign suggest this remains a work in progress.
That is certainly the case for the face of the franchise in Jimmy Garoppolo. The quarterback helped the 49ers take the lead twice in the fourth quarter before underwhelming late-game drives and poor passes allowed Arizona to prevail, 24-20.
The 49ers looked like an outfit that did not have a preseason game to iron out kinks, but that excuse won’t work. No one had an exhibition season in this COVID-19 season.
San Francisco started fast against a team it needed to handle in the muscle-bound NFC West that includes the Seahawks and Rams, but the 49ers lost steam on offense and could not keep pace with Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins.
Murray, last season’s No. 1 pick, passed for 230 yards and a touchdown and rushed 13 times for 91 yards and a make-you-miss touchdown. Brought aboard in the offseason, Hopkins produced a career-best 14 catches for 151 yards.
The only crowd noise was of the piped-in variety, which added to the oddness of this opener. Otherwise, fans expecting a march right back into the Super Bowl with a resounding opening effort surely would have rained down sounds of discord as players left the field. The boo target remains an easy one — Garoppolo.
Against the Cardinals, Garoppolo was without his starting and backup center, his right guard and two starting receivers, all out with injuries. But this was still a winnable game. He had his shot, and that’s why it eats at him.
Garoppolo passed for 259 yards, 76 or those coming on an over-the-middle pass to Raheem Mostert, who jetted into the end zone for a 10-0 lead. Garopolo completed just 8 of 17 passes in the second half. His timing and accuracy were off.
Garoppolo floated a pass into the end zone to Kendrick Bourne with just over a moment to play at the end of the game. The pass was broken up. His final pass to Trent Taylor to keep the last-ditch drive alive was underthrown on fourth-and-5 at the Arizona 16, and the Cardinals escaped with their first September victory since 2017.
The 49ers were 2 of 11 on third-down conversions and the Cardinals 7 of 14. This one isn’t all on Garoppolo, but he has to up his game in a performance-based profession. He admitted as much. He is a solid, decent quarterback, but he needs to offer glimpses of elite if the 49ers expect to duplicate last season’s magic.
We can say this about Garoppolo: He doesn’t deflect criticism.
“Not the way we wanted to start the season,” Garoppolo said afterward. “Every little detail on every single play ... consistency for our offense needs to improve.”
On his last pass that was broken up and sealed it for Arizona, Garoppolo said he has to make better throws.
He also said, “That game-day feeling just wasn’t there. We didn’t execute the way we needed to. There was juice in the locker room, juice on the sideline, but obviously, we did miss The Faithful (fans) out there.”
Those fans took him to task on social media, and heaven help the abuse television sets endured across Northern California as this one slipped away in the Santa Clara haze.
The 49ers defense also had breakdowns, one fatal. On Hopkins’ wide-open 33-yard catch-and-run play that set up Arizona’s winning score, a 1-yard plunge by Kenyan Drake with 5:03 to play, 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman explained, “we had two sides playing two different coverages. So any time you do that, you’ll have a hole.”
The 49ers will get their swift receivers back to stretch the field. The defense will settle in. There will be better days for Garoppolo. Next week’s game in New York, against the Giants, is the start of the rest of the season, said tight end star George Kittle, who insisted he is fine after leaving the game with a leg injury. He returned to the game.
“I’m disappointed. Losing sucks, but we’ll do everything we can to come out and win next week,” he said.