The Arizona Cardinals left Levi’s Stadium with a 36-30 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in Week 3, but one strange sideline moment quickly stole part of the spotlight.
A viral photo shared by Barstool Gambling on X showed an NFL official in the middle of trying to spot the football after a play, only for his hand to end up in the wrong place. The image appeared to show the referee touching an Arizona player’s groin instead of the ball, and the post spread fast with the caption, “You’re spotting the wrong ball ref!”
The player involved wasn’t identifiable in the picture, since his face and jersey number weren’t visible. That spared him from having the moment pinned directly to his name, even if the image itself did the talking.
For Arizona, though, the awkward incident was only a side note to a much bigger problem. The Cardinals are trying to keep pace in a loaded NFC West, where the 49ers, Seahawks, and Rams all sit in a division described as having Super Bowl potential. The Seahawks, as the source notes, won it just last year.
The Cardinals’ own run has been rough. The franchise is the oldest continuously run professional football team in America, but the last time it reached the NFL playoffs was the 2021 season. Over the past five years, the team has gone through a turbulent stretch of coaching and roster turnover, and the source suggests the road back could be a long one.
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LaFleur pointed to the effort he saw Sunday while also stressing the need for patience and improvement, which is where this team now lives: somewhere between encouraging signs and the hard reality of a long climb back. The record is still the record, and the losses in the division keep piling up, but Arizona at least showed enough against San Francisco to suggest the conversation about this coaching staff is not as simple as the standings say. [Read more 🡒]
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Jacoby Brissett gave Arizona enough to stay in the fight, finishing 38 of 52 for 280 yards and two touchdowns, even if the offense took too long to get rolling. There were positive signs, too, including Simi Fehokos recovery of a muffed punt, but those flashes were drowned out by 10 penalties for 86 yards and the kind of tackling breakdowns that can erase a strong stretch in a hurry. [Read more 🡒]
Cardinals Showed Fight But Two Familiar Problems Still Loom Large
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But the bigger issues that have shadowed this team were still there in full view. Arizona had trouble keeping Brock Purdy under control, gave up too much through the air and never consistently generated pressure of its own, and the 10 penalties only added to the mess. Even after a late onside kick recovery kept the game alive, the Cardinals could not quite erase the sense that the margin for error remains thin while those problems linger. [Read more 🡒]