The Good, Bad and Ugly From Cardinals Loss vs 49ers

ARIZONA -- The Arizona Cardinals fell to 3-7 on the season following their Week 11 loss to the San Francisco 49ers, and as the second half of the year churns forward, we still have more questions than answers.

Rating the good, bad and ugly from their loss at State Farm Stadium:

The Good: Michael Wilson

If the Cardinals had any chance of winning on Sunday, Michael Wilson needed to have a game.

He did just that.

With Marvin Harrison Jr. out and Trey McBride swallowing attention, Wilson was peppered with opportunities and made plays at nearly every single opportunity.

Wilson ended the game with 15 receptions on 18 targets for 185 yards, which was the most receiving yards for any player this season.

“I think that's what we expected from him. I thought he was going to rise to the occasion, Cardinals QB Jacoby Brissett said after the game. "... I thought he played his butt off and made a bunch of plays for us.”

Wilson finally got his opportunity after weeks of being on the backburner of Arizona's offense - and he established himself as somebody who absolutely needs to be involved more moving forward.

The Bad: Losing the Turnover Battle

Ask any football coach and they'll tell you losing the turnover battle is a death wish in terms of winning - and Arizona was the perfect case study on Sunday, losing the ball three times to San Francisco's zero.

Even on a day where the Cardinals set a franchise record for penalties (more on that later) head coach Jonathan Gannon said the most disappointing part of the loss was losing the turnover battle.

“No. The ball was the biggest disappointment. We lost that (the turnover battle) 3-0. You’re not going to beat anybody," he said.

Jacoby Brissett had just his fifth career game with multiple interceptions, the first looking like a miscommunication between him and the receivers while the second was Brissett trying to fit a ball on the sideline before the defender jumped the route.

The Cardinals' defense, meanwhile, had numerous opportunities to catch some misplaced passes from Brock Purdy but just couldn't come down with the ball.

Arizona was simply out-played, though the turnovers only added insult to injury.

The Ugly: Discipline

The Cardinals set a new franchise record with 17 penalties for 130 yards on the day.

Simply put, the loss against San Francisco was perhaps the most jumbled and undisciplined the Cardinals have looked under Gannon with mental errors and absence of technique prominent throughout the 60 minutes played.

"I think some of them are judgment, some of our technique-related issues. They call what they call. That was a component of the game that we obviously did not do well with. We have to control more controllables that don't relate to penalties to give ourselves a chance to win. We did not do that," Gannon said after the game.

The 49ers had just one penalty for 15 yards against them.

The penalties are a direct indictment of what's currently transpiring on the field in the desert, and a woeful performance like that does nobody any favors.

To call that performance ugly would be underselling.