The San Francisco 49ers and Arizona Cardinals are attempting to play something resembling football, and the ugliness was perfectly encapsulated in the Cardinals first drive of the second quarter. The team moved the ball 76 yards on nine plays to score a touchdown to take a 13-3 lead. That might not seem like a big deal, but what is crazy is the fact that Arizona had five separate 1st and goal opportunities inside the 3-yard line!
The Cardinals started the drive on their own 24 at the beginning of the third quarter. The Cardinals quickly flipped the field, with Carson Palmer connecting on a 48-yard pass to John Brown to set up 1st and 10 at the 49ers 23. Three plays later, the Cardinals had first and goal at the three yard line. The Cardinals would go on to have four more opportunities of first and goal thanks to numerous penalties.
We've got a super cut of the various penalties above, and you can read the play-by-play of this fairly insane series below. There were some reasonable penalties, but it seems like there were plenty of opportunities for the referees to let the players just play. Instead, we got flag after flag after flag. The 49ers have since cut into the lead, but they almost had a pretty epic-ish defensive stand.
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