For the majority of the 110 years of the Cardinals’ franchise history, the only luck they’ve known is bad luck.

Lucky bounces are synonymous with the punting game; it’s the skill of the punt returner to field the ball to eliminate the favourable bounce and/or roll. Dirk Johnson punted like crap all preseason, so that’s all the Niners saw on film, so why run up to field the ball? I’m sure the game plan will be different in game two…if Dirk is still on the team at that point.

The pooch kick-off went exactly as intended: kick straight to a blocker-type that will muff the ball right into the hands of a ST skill guy to recover the ball. That’s not luck but execution (okay, maybe just a little luck, but intended luck! Yeah, that’s it…).

The deflected pass to Boldin probably helped to complete the pass, so I’ll say good luck was involved there for Warner.

Luck worked in the Niners favour as well as Bertrand Berry’s forced fumbled rolled down field away from the Cards’ end zone forcing Antonio Smith to chase, grab, stop, turn around, and get mugged by tacklers. ::shrugs:: It could have rolled the other way to be scooped up by a LB with a head of steam.

Luck, in all its forms, has a tendency to balance out. I’m sure most of the Cardinals fans would claim that the Niners had plenty of luck in last year’s season opener.

As to the NFC West, after one week all I can say is….hmmm. The Rams suck mightily and will likely see a coaching change by mid-year at this rate of production. The Seahawks are more vulnerable than previously thought (or the Bills are a helluva a lot better than thought!), the Niners will be in all their games this year, as well as the Cardinals. The fact that the division is synced up with the AFC and NFC East divisions is going to be brutal across the board. 9-7 is all it will take to win the division, just like years past, and three of the four teams have a chance to do it.

It ought to be exciting to see how it all plays out.

played great. I saw pressure all day, not just in the first half. The secondary needs to be more aggressive. Warner was throwing passes that could easiler be knocked down. But Justin Smith was everywhere, P-willie didn’t get too many tackles, but he was still a total beast, Lawson wasn’t much of a pass rusher, but did a good job forcing james to the outside at times. The big guys did ok, but did give up 120 yards rushing, granit, on over 30 carries. The blitz package worked great with Haralson and Green. Brooks didn;t play much. Spike did ok, but it was the fumble that killed him. I’d like to see more corner and saftey blitzs to screw with warner. Ray McDonlad had a nice game other than a personal foul that DESTROYED us.

I stopped by Maiocco’s blog before getting here this a.m. and the more stats I saw, the more bizarre this game appears. The Cards only averaged 2.8 yards a carry. They only had one yard more rushing than the Niners. This one blew me away: the Cards were only 5 of 16 on third downs.

And Maiocco says that the Cardinals scored no points off the four offensive turnovers. Is that right?

Let’s try to imagine the game without a five-turnover deficit. Does anyone think the Niners, or any other team, wouldn’t win the game? Does anyone think that with five more possessions that the time of possession gap would be so lopsided?

I might have to reconsider last night’s criticism of the defense, although a couple more three and outs would have helped. And the Niners are still soft in the center of the D line. And it seemed as if Wisenhunt’s plan to run out the clock starting at the second half kickoff left Nolan without a counter strategy.

I don’t know. I think the offense could be really good. A lot of the frustration of fans with O’Sullivan has to do withoverall frustration and with a lot of emotions over A. Smith. Really, for his first start he was okay. His yards per attempt was great.

It was a very weird game and the second half sucked the energy out of everyone, especially the fans.

The biggest question (QB) was settled a bit…O’Sullivan played pretty decently in his first ever start. The INT was the one glaring error, but I think that was one of the better QB-ing efforts we’ve seen in a while. We no longer have to be concerned about 3-and-outs every time they get the ball.

I’m not concerned about the defense. They played very well, getting pressure on the QB all day until towards the end of the game, when understandably, they’d be tired from being on the field all game.

The turnover suck, but that’s more of an abboration than anything, I think. Like Fooch said, a lot of it was luck and won’t be repeated every game. I’d be more concerned about 5 INTs than 4 fumbles lost by 4 different players.

I watched the whole Seattle game, and I was extremely excited after watching it. They are obviously a shell of their former division winning teams. Their OL is even worse than ours, and their defense was extremely porous against a merely decent Bills team. I think unless somehow next week’s game has more of this crazy turnover business, the 49ers are going to shock everyone and come out with a solid win. Like it was said, they only lost by 10 and the offense wasn’t on the field but for one solid possession in the 2nd half.

This is the best 49ers team I’ve seen since Garcia took us to the playoffs, and I think the top of the division is definitely in sight.

Needs to know when to fair catch and when not to. When to let the ball hit the turf and when to return it.

Fair catching a punt so you have two seconds left to attempt a hail mary in the half only works in Madden, not in the actual NFL.

I think I saw a different JTO than a lot of people did. Being at the game makes it hard for me to say anything for certain about his performance (even if it seems like I have been) just because of the angle, the distance, seeing every play only once, and the fallibility of the eye, but he didn’t look good to me. Inaccurate, even on his completions, with a number of either poor or late decisions, including one glaring idiot play on the pick.