San Francisco 49ers bold predictions for Week 5 vs. Cardinals

Yesterday at 05:37 PM

Week 5 has the potential to be one of the most consequential of the season for the San Francisco 49ers.

If they secure the win and the Seattle Seahawks somehow drop a stunner to the New York Giants, Kyle Shanahan’s squad will be tied for first place for the first time since Week 2. But if they lose? To a division rival, nonetheless? Well, they could be in a three-way tie for last place against two teams with head-to-head victories, should the Los Angeles Rams stun the Green Bay Packers, of course.

Fortunately, the division rival the 49ers landed in Week 5 isn’t Mike Macdonald’s pesky Seahawks but instead, the Arizona Cardinals, who looked unbeatable in Week 2 against the Rams but have looked decidedly beatable in every game before and since. Will the Cardinals turn in another marquee performance, with Kyler Murray’s tape looking like his old Heisman highlights? Potentially so, but it feels far more likely that the 49ers will steamroll their division foes, as they have more ways to attack the Cardinals’ defense than Arizona has answers for.

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1. Brock Purdy has his second 300-passing game of the season

As the second-leading passer in the NFL behind only Geno Smith through the first four games of the NFL season, you would think that Purdy is absolutely airing it out in games for the 49ers this season, right?

Technically, yes, Purdy is throwing the ball more often than at least 30 other quarterbacks across the NFL, but that doesn’t mean he’s putting up Thursday Night Football Kirk Cousins numbers on the regular, as so far, he only has one 300-yard passing games on the season, or four fewer than 2023 overall.

But why? Well, part of his has to do with how often Purdy throws the ball, as he’s only attempted more than 30 passes in one game this season – Week 2 against the Minnesota Vikings – and that just so happened to be the game where he surpassed the 300 mark. In the other three, Purdy threw the ball 30 times or fewer, with the 49ers instead focusing on a strong run game that limited opportunities through the air. Granted, he still averaged 270 yards per game, but that isn’t 300, with just Smith averaging that total in the month of September.

Fortunately, it is officially October, and Purdy should be able to start a new month-long trend versus the Cardinals, as their passing defense is average at best by 2024 NFL standards.

Facing off against the Buffalo Bills, Los Angeles Rams, Detroit Lions, and Washington Commanders over the past four weeks, the Cardinals have allowed opposing teams to complete 78.6 percent of their passes for 833 yards and five touchdowns, good for the 17th-best mark in the NFL.

So, if Purdy just has an average game by his 2024 standards, throwing the ball 30.5 times while averaging 9.3 yards per attempt in 2024, Mr. Irrelevant should flirt with 283 yards in the game. But if Purdy is able to complete 78.6 percent of his 30.5 passes for his season average of 13.5, he could easily eclipse 325 passing yards on the way to the biggest mark of the season so far.

2. Jordan Mason turns in his fourth 100-yard rushing game

With Christian McCaffrey still out of action for the foreseeable future, Jordan Mason has done a bang-up job on the ground in his absence, recording at least 100 yards in three of the four games he’s appeared in this season while averaging 111.75 yards per game on the ground.

Mason has looked good between the tackles, good on outside runs, and has even found some success as a receiver, even if the 49ers’ closest chance of replacing CMC out of the backfield likely means more Deebo Samuel at RB and/or Kyle Juszczyk targets, with the Harvard product being criminally underutilized so far this season.

And if the Cardinals decide to focus their efforts on shutting down the passing game, where the 49ers have been consistently effective in 2024, San Francisco may offer up a counter-push by doubling down on Mason, who has proven himself more than capable of getting the job done on the ground.

Facing off against a Cardinals defense that has allowed the 27th-most rushing yards in the NFL through four weeks at 586, the pride of Georgia Tech has a chance to gash up an Arizona front seven headlined by… Kyzir White(?), with the potential to surpass Derrick Henry as the top rusher in the NFL through five weeks, even if he has just an average game.

Who knows, maybe Jonathan Gannon will view Mason as the player he has to stop, committing all of his defensive firepower to stacking the box to stress the offensive line, but if the passing game is Arizona’s focus in Week 5, then Mason might just be on the way to his signature game as a Niner just a few months before he hits restricted free agency.

3. The 49ers open October with a win

So if Purdy can take care of business through the air, or Mason gets the job done on the ground, or better yet, Purdy and Mason both put in work on the way to an absolutely dominant effort against the desert birds, the 49ers are heading towards another huge win, their fourth of the season?

Yes, while no win in the NFL is guaranteed, as there were a few thousand very disappointed fans leaving SoFi Stadium at the end of Week 3, this game feels far more likely to go down as a blow-out win than an ugly loss, with the 49ers incredibly likely to hit whatever over your sportsbook of choice has available. Hit the over, folks, as the 49ers appear to be one of the more likely winners of October’s first weekend of games.

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