Well, the huge strides made by the offense a couple Thursdays ago were lost in a miasma of dropped passes, interminable penalties, misguided throws, and a tepid run game featuring a suddenly dropsy Carlos Hyde, and not much else. Robbie Gould kicked 5 FGs, and the Niners were poised to win their 1st game, in OT, but the refs again made a questionable call late in OT to give AZ a 1st down and thus the game-winning TD.

Fucking Carson Palmer looked good till we started blasting him, yet he constantly went after Rashard Robinson. This resulted in at least 4 penalties called on him. They never really did roll Tartt to help him, but Tartt was for the most part the single deep guy 35 yard back on any given play. So, he was for the most part watching from the bleachers. Robinson came in to the league all piss and vinegar, but the game is humbling his ass pretty convincingly.  I like his attitude, but he came in raw and is playing that way. 2 of the 4 calls on him were borderline, but he did get his head around to make some plays on deep balls. Robinson had kept Larry Fitzgerald quiet most of the game till, well, you know.

As onerous as all the penalties on defense were, and AZ was given the right to knock our wideouts down with no calls,  the offense reverted to its erroneous ways of inopportune penalties, terrible drops, and hurried throws from our soon-to-be backup QB. I don’t know if Hoyer will make it through the season as the starter, but yet again his pass catchers didn’t. A nice early drive was thwarted by a 3rd down drop of a perfectly thrown pass down the right sideline to Logan Paulson that would have gone for about 35 yards.

Marquise Goodwin went down early with a concussion, so the onus fell on Aldrick Robinson to make plays. He didn’t. More often than not he and Hoyer were off-script and couldn’t connect despite 10-12 targets. And of course the obligatory drop of another perfectly thrown pass that would have garnered about 45 yards. Garcon was blanketed by Patrick Peterson so he was kept in check. Carlos Hyde played about half of the available plays as he was shuttled in and out with Matt Brieda. He fumbled twice, once being recovered by Staley, and the other being ruled down.

Again though, the NFL feels the overarching need of football is to give a forum for the referees. Every ticky tack penalty MUST be called regardless of the impact of the game. Hand-checking of WRs/DBs is tolerated until it isn’t. WRs can be tackled, but they can’t occupy space over the middle. Merely running by a cutting WR drew a flag for Robinson yesterday without any actual contact.

Trent Taylor, despite being a small guy, is drawing an inordinate number of penalties for things like running crossing routes that cause OPI calls. It negated our best chance for a TD, and was about a 70-30% non-call, as crossing routes are supposed to cause confusion and traffic. The pisser is Brieda was cleared the LBs and the pick didn’t help the play.

Oh well. I’m as frustrated as everyone else, but I don’t think this is the time to switch QBs or anything. As terible as our red zone offense was yesterday, the problem was penalties and drops. Not horrible QB play. Besides that, I don’t think BeatHard is ready by any stretch.