by David Zizmor

SANTA CLARA–The 49ers who improved with a big win over the Houston Texans last Sunday they have another home game coming up against the Arizona Cardinals and this should be a good game. Arizona has not been great this year but their sitting there pretty right now with the 49ers at 3-2. The Cardinals while they’ve had their struggles the last year adding quarterback Carson Palmer has helped them.

They at least have a semi competent offense something that you could not say about them last year when they kind of had a carousel going on with their quarterbacks. Last week Arizona won 22-6 against Carolina they flexed their muscles on defense and did a really good job and here they come into San Francisco looking not too bad their on a two game winning streak.

You have to worry a little bit because Arizona might be coming in feeling a little confident because they’re obviously familiar with the 49ers so their not going to be surprised by anything they throw at them. The 49ers can’t take this team lightly and sure the 49ers have had some success against the Cards the last several years. Nevertheless you can’t rest on your laurels you have to focus on who your playing and right now and it’s the Cardinals.

What the 49ers have going for them is their offense which is finally starting to pick up some steam, they’re playing well in the running game, the offensive line is blocking really well and what they really need to do is improve their passing game it’s going to be tough against Arizona. Arizona has a very good one of the best cornerbacks in the league in Patrick Peterson, Tyrann Mathieu the Honeybadger is doing a good job as a rookie, they have Darnell Docket on that offensive line, Calais Campbell is also very good, their defense is not going to roll over and let the 49ers run all over them.

They’re going to have something to say and let’s face it if you watch these Niners-Cardinals games in the last couple of years they’ve been very, very physical. Arizona’s offense is still underwhelming I did mention before Palmer is an improvement over the quarterack play from last year. Everybody in the Bay Area who watches Palmer play for the Raiders last season knows that while Palmer is competent he does have a tendency to make mistakes at the worse possible moments.

Palmer is a guy who will throw an interception at the worst possible moment or could lose the ball with a big hit and for the 49ers one thing they know if they hit Palmer it could really rattle him but lately the Arizona offensive line has been horrid add to that the fact that Arizona hasn’t had any semblance of a running game and that means the 49ers can really focus on pass rushing Palmer and wreck havoc on him.

That’s probably going to be the difference when you can focus on one half of the offense and not the other and not worry about the other that makes it a whole lot easier for a defense. The fact that the 49ers are already a good running defense to begin with means their not going to be worried about giving up big chunks of yardage on the ground. The 49ers running game has been very good in the last couple of weeks they do what they want to get the passing game going a little bit better.

Daivd Zizmor is covering the NFL for Sportstalk Radio