Do you ever feel like you are part of a cruel joke?

The Arizona Cardinals come out, play decently, keep the game close, have a chance to put things together, and instead they get a field goal blocked and come back for a touchdown, then they drive and set set up and a clear screen intercepted and returned deep into Niners territory to set up another score for the San Francisco 49ers before halftime.

The defense is not playing badly.

The offense isn’t playing poorly, they’re just an inherently flawed team that needs to play perfectly, while other, more skilled and better coached (?), teams can have days off and still be fine.

The question becomes how bad does it get in the second half against a Niners team that seems to be on cruise control?

Beyond that, there’s not much more to say: the Cardinals can’t make any mistakes if they want to compete against good teams.

In particular, they cannot make mistakes on consecutive drives.