Most Super Bowl championship teams have at least one bad game. Sometimes it happens in Week 1.
Maybe we’ll look up at the end of December, maybe even the end of September, and the San Francisco 49ers’ opening-game loss to the Arizona Cardinals will look like a blip in another successful season. Hopefully for 49ers fans, it was just a one-off.
Whatever happens next, Sunday wasn’t a fluky loss. Arizona had 29 first downs to 18 for the 49ers. The Cardinals outgained the 49ers 404-366. The 49ers were 2-of-11 on third-down conversions and 0-for-2 on fourth down.