TNF Preview and Prediction: Cardinals Need DJ, Not Red Bull

Arizona Cardinals (1-3) @ San Francisco 49ers (1-3)

Spread: Cardinals -3.5

Over/Under: 43

This game isn’t exactly the highlight of week 5 but some football is better than no football. I wanted to give a quick preview of this game, highlighting some strengths and weaknesses of each team as well as my prediction at the end.

The Cardinals have been a huge disappointment thus far and this game won’t be an easy win for them. The main reason for their poor start is their offense not showing the same type of explosiveness as 2015. Their point totals have been 21, 40, 18 and 13. Minus their 40 point explosion against the poor Bucs defense, the Cards have struggled to get going. With Drew Stanton starting at QB this week I don’t expect that to change too much.

Chip Kelly running the 49ers looks like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. However, many of their struggles have come from Blaine Gabbert’s inability to complete deep passes. He currently ranks 33rd in the NFL in passer rating and the 49ers are LAST in the NFL in average passing yards per game. The defense just lost Navarro Bowman and already wasn’t doing too well. They also rank LAST in the league in rushing yards allowed, giving up 142 yards a game on average to opposing RBs.

How the 49ers win:

On defense: It is vital for the 49ers to stop the run. If they stop the run it will force backup Drew Stanton to throw the ball, giving them a better chance to make some stops.

On offense: the 49ers need to establish the run and hit a few long passes. The Cardinals gave up a few long plays last week and are 20th this season in giving up “explosive pass plays” according to sharpfootballstats.com. All it takes is one or two long passes to Torrey Smith for the Cardinals to have to play some catchup, and with Stanton in that could lead to success for the 49ers. However, Gabberts dink and dunk approach could actually be successful this week. If you look at this visual of opponent QBs passer rating against the Cards D, you see that the Cardinals are very susceptible to short passes.

How the Cardinals Win:

On Defense: Carlos Hyde has been the heart of the 49ers O this year. He has scored 5 out of their 11 total TDs. Stopping him and forcing their sad excuse of a QB to throw should lead to great success. Their passing D has been pretty good overall allowing only the 7th least passing yards this season.

On Offense: Get David Johnson the ball 30+ times. If you look at this visual (Sharpfootballstats.com) of David Johnson’s YPC this year you can see he has been awesome running any direction (except towards the LT):

Factor this in with the 49ers giving up 5.7 YPC to opposing teams and you should see David Johnson run wild tonight. The WR’s present mismatches all over the field against SFs poor secondary. Anytime they are forced to throw it shouldn’t be difficult to complete passes as one of their trio of WR’s will be open. As long as Drew Stanton manages the game and doesn’t turn the ball over the Cardinals should have a lot of success on offense.

My Prediction: 20-13 Cardinals

Both of these teams struggle to stop the run and should gameplan to focus on that and force the opposing QB to throw. But when it comes down to it, the Cardinals D is much more talented and should actually be able to slow down the run, while I don’t think the 49ers will be able too. David Johnson will be the star of this game rushing for over 100 yards and scoring two TDs. The 49ers will struggle to be effective on offense as the Cardinals sell out to stop the run knowing Gabbert can’t put the team on his back. Hyde will still get plenty of volume and probably a TD as @FantasyADHD and a few other game script researchers have noted that the 49ers tend to stick with the run regardless of if they are losing or winning.

Fantasy Must-Starts:

David Johnson

Larry Fitz

Carlos Hyde

If you want to see another one of my other game previews the links are below. I am currently 2-0 on predictions when doing these write-ups.

SuperBowl :http://www.fantasyfootballmatrix.com/single-post/2016/02/05/Super-Bowl-50-Analysis-and-Prediction