Arizona defeats San Fran on monday night football

Winning for the first time on a Monday night since moving west 20 years ago, the Arizona Cardinals improved their record to 6-3 with a come from behind 29-24 victory over San Francisco.  The 49ers battled throughout in an effort to give new coach Mike Singletary his first victory at the helm but were eventually done in by turnovers and the steady play of ageless Kurt Warner.

San Francisco controlled the contest in the first half and at the break it looked like Arizona’s six game home winning streak was in jeopardy as the Niners led 21-13.  San Fran literally led from the start, as Allen Rossum ran the opening kickoff back 104 yards for a touchdown.  In the second quarter, Niners QB Shaun Hill connected twice on TD passes, the first to Josh Morgan for 31 yards and the second to Vernon Davis for 18 yards.  Arizona kept themselves in the game via two Neil Rackers field goals and a 13 yard Kurt Warner TD pass to Anquan Boldin.

Warner opened the2nd half scoring for Arizona with another touchdown pass, this one a 5 yard strike to Larry Fitzgerald to cut the Niners lead to a single point.  San Francisco got some breathing room later in the 3rd period via a Joe Nedney 41 yard FG to extend their lead to 4 points at 24-20.

In the final period it was all Arizona as PK Rackers narrowed the margin with another field goal and Warner’s 3rd TD pass of the game—once again to Boldin from 4 yards out—put the Cards up for good.  San Francisco didn’t go away without a fight, and the Cardinals were forced to turn back their final challenge with a last second goal line stand to preserve the victory.

For the game, Warner was 32 of 42 for 328 yards with 3 TDs and no interceptions.  His 49er counterpart Shaun Hill was 19 of 40 for 217 yards with 2 TDs and 2 interceptions.  With his 76.2% completion ratio for the game, Warner has completed at least 70% of his passes in 6 of the Cards games this season.  With the win Arizona has opened up a three game lead in the NFC West, a feat made significantly easier by the fact that the remaining three teams in the division are all 2-7 on the year (Seattle, San Francisco, St. Louis).  San Francisco is still winless in the Mike Singletary era as they dropped their sixth consecutive game.

Arizona will travel to the Jet City on Sunday for a game with the aforementioned Seattle Seahawks before returning home the following week for a big contest against the NY Giants.  They’ll immediately turn around and head to Philadelphia for a Thanksgiving Day matchup against the Eagles.  San Francisco will try again to give their new coach his first win as the equally hapless St. Louis Rams come to town.  That’ll be followed by two tough road games in Dallas and Buffalo.