Cardinals are about to deliver 49ers fans a gigantic wake-up call

When the Arizona Cardinals take the field in Week 5, rookie quarterback Trey Lance will be starting under center for the San Francisco 49ers.

Getting a win over the San Francisco 49ers hasn’t been easy for the Arizona Cardinals during the Kliff Kingsbury era. With Kingsbury as their head coach since 2019, the Cardinals have just one win in their last four meetings against the 49ers.

This season, however, Arizona fans should expect to see a much different outcome when their favorite team takes on San Francisco this weekend inside State Farm Stadium.

Not only are the Cardinals the only unbeaten team left in the NFL, but the 49ers are now sitting with a 2-2 record after dropping their last two games on their home field. San Francisco will be starting rookie quarterback Trey Lance on Sunday as well, which should play right into Arizona’s favor.

San Francisco 49ers fans are a little too confident about Trey Lance facing the Arizona Cardinals

On Friday, the 49ers ruled out quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo for this weekend’s trip to the desert due to a calf injury. With Garoppolo out of action, San Francisco will turn to Lance, their top pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, to lead them to an upset victory over the Cardinals.

Shortly after news started to spread about the rookie quarterback getting his first chance to start, an irrational amount of confidence began to spread amongst 49ers fans all over the internet and social media.

The majority of this irrational confidence comes from San Francisco fans reading some tweets that have caused them to think Lance can excel against Arizona by utilizing his ability to scramble and make plays with his legs.

There is a gigantic difference between the Cardinals giving up a bunch of rushing yards to someone like Dalvin Cook and Arizona attempting to stop a rookie quarterback who faced FCS defenses in his college career.

It also seems to be conveniently left out of the conversation that the Cardinals held Tennessee Titans running back Derrick Henry to 58 rushing yards on 17 carries in Week 1. Henry only rushed for 2,027 yards last season, so what Arizona did wasn’t a big deal or anything.

Also not included in the discussion is the fact that the Cardinals currently rank third in the NFL in turnovers forced. Running for a bunch of yards isn’t going to mean anything if San Francisco cannot hold onto the ball.

Let’s just totally ignore Arizona’s high-powered offense that currently ranks first in points scored and total yards. If the 49ers defense can’t stop the Cardinals offense on Sunday, is San Francisco just going to try and keep up by running the ball? No, don’t be silly.

Are the 49ers capable of defeating Arizona on Sunday? Sure, of course they are. But let’s stop acting like San Francisco and their rookie quarterback making his first start are heading into some super favorable matchup this week.