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Why the Arizona Cardinals Pose a Legitimate Threat to the 49ers

Arizona won just four games last season so people don't take them seriously. They're a year away from being a year away, people say. But is that true?

Grant Cohn

Dec 17, 2023; Glendale, Ariz, United States; Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray (1) congratulates San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) after losing 45-22 at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Michael Chow-Arizona Republic
Dec 17, 2023; Glendale, Ariz, United States; Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray (1) congratulates San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) after losing 45-22 at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Michael Chow-Arizona Republic / Michael Chow/The Republic / USA TODAY
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The NFC West is no joke.

We all know the 49ers are stacked and the Rams are one of the best teams in the conference when healthy. We also know the Seahawks are talented and could make a leap under first-year head coach Mike Macdonald. But the Cardinals are sleepers.

Arizona won just four games last season so people don't take them seriously. They're a year away from being a year away, people say. But is that true? Teams go from last place to the playoffs almost every year in the NFL. Could the Cardinals be the next team? Should the 49ers be concerned about them?

Consider that Kyler Murray started the final eight games for the Cardinals last season, and in that time their offense averaged 362.8 yards per game. Prorated for an entire season, their offense would have ranked 8th in the NFL right between the Rams (362.9 yards per game) and the Chiefs (357.9 yards per game).

So the Cardinals offense is better than people realize. And they just drafted Marvin Harrison Jr. who is supposed to be the best wide receiver to come out of college in years. He could become the NFC West's best wide receiver as a rookie.

And then there's Murray, who's had an up-and-down career, but he's never played with a wide receiver as talented as Harrison Jr. And the 49ers never have been able to contain mobile quarterbacks.

Fortunately for the 49ers, Arizona's defense lacks talent and probably can't stop Brock Purdy and Christian McCaffrey. But if the 49ers can't stop Arizona's offense either, these matchups could be extremely high-scoring.

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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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