The Cardinals and 49ers face off on Thursday Night Football this week, and you can watch the entire game online right here.
Live Twitter Thursday Night Football Stream: 49ers vs. Cardinals
Only 12 teams have rallied from a 1-4 start to make it to the NFL Playoffs since 1990. When Arizona and San Francisco meet in a Thursday Night Football showdown, the outcome will all but squash one team's postseason dreams.
It's not a surprise the 49ers sit at 1-3 a quarter of the way through the season; The team has suffered two years of major positional losses and lacks the offensive identity so commonly linked with head coach Chip Kelly. The Cardinals, however, are a different story.
Bruce Arians was supposed to lead last year's NFL Championship Game runners-up back to postseason glory. Arizona shared the league's fifth-best preseason odds to win Super Bowl LI. An opening night loss to the Patriots seemed like a small setback, especially when it was followed by a 40-7 thrashing of Tampa Bay. However, the Cardinals are on an 0-2 slide since then, losing to power rankings' afterthoughts Buffalo and Los Angeles. They need a win Thursday or face writing 2016 off as a lost season.
Neither team has much stability behind center. The Cardinals will turn to backup Drew Stanton after losing veteran Carson Palmer to a concussion last week against the Rams.Stanton hasn't thrown a touchdown pass in a regular season game since 2014, but Arizona will hope he can re-energize an offense that had fallen off this autumn. Palmer had shown signs of regression in 2016; his 81.9 passer rating through four games was his lowest since 2011 when he was a refugee in Oakland.
The 49ers will hope Blaine Gabbert can turn his season around. The young veteran has been one of the league's least effective passers this fall. Despite leading San Francisco to a 28-0 opening night pasting of now 3-1 Los Angeles, he's lost three straight games, albeit against a much higher level of competition. If Gabbert continues to disappoint, Colin Kaepernick is a candidate to replace him -- though the Niners don't appear exactly comfortable with that situation either.
How to watch Arizona Cardinals vs. San Francisco 49ers
When: 8:25 p.m. ET
Where: Levi's Stadium, Santa Clara, CA
TV: CBS, NFL Network
Announcers: Jim Nantz, Phil Simms, and Tracy Wolfson
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