The Arizona Cardinals had their depth at cornerback tested on Sunday in their 47-24 win over the San Francisco 49ers, and that led to a critical play.
Kei’Trel Clark’s fourth-quarter interception when the Cardinals were up by nine points changed what could have been a close game into a blowout.
In normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have been in the game, but Max Melton injured his wrist early and didn’t return.
Then, in the second quarter, cornerback Sean-Murphy Bunting and 49ers receiver Jauan Jennings were both ejected.
With the 49ers in the red zone, after Josh Dobbs completed a 10-yard pass to Jennings, on the next play, Jennings block cornerback Star Thomas V during a nine-yard run play by Patrick Taylor, but the blocking continued after the play, leading to a minor tussle. Both were flagged for offsetting personal fouls.
On the next play, a six-yard run by Dobbs, Jennings blocked Murphy-Bunting, but things continued after the play, leading to personal fouls by both players, and both were ejected.
Safety Budda Baker saw the altercation coming.
After the play with Thomas, Baker said, “I definitely heard Murphy-Bunting and Jenning talking that next play, so I already knew what it was going to be. Sadly, they lined up next to each other, so I knew what it was going to be.”
He said he told Murphy-Bunting that it wasn’t smart, but “we’re all human and we make mistakes.”
Jennings suggested the whole thing was Murphy-Bunting’s fault.
“(It was) just a normal pancake in a book of football,” he said after the game. “I took him to the ground and I tried to get up and he wouldn’t let me get up. (He) just kept grabbing my jersey, grabbing my face mask as much as he could. Anything to grab me and I was just trying to get him off of me.”
Jenning’s ejection caused him to miss out on an important milestone. He entered the game needing 77 yards to reach 1,000 receiving yards for the first time in his career. He had seven catches for 52 yards in the second quarter when he got tossed, so he finished 25 yards short.
But were it not for that, Clark would not have been in the game in the fourth quarter when, the Cardinals leading 33-24 with 6:40 to go in the game, Dobbs threw a pass to Ricky Pearsall that went off his hands. Clark managed to get both hands underneath the ball while falling to the ground and made the interception. What originally looked like a pick-six was, upon review, just an interception and he was touched down. But Kyle Murray’s 12-yard touchdown pass to Marvin Harrison Jr. three plays later, blew the game wide open, making it 40-24.
Baker described what happened.
“I was so excited. It was one of those pressures that it could possibly have been me or someone else,” he explained, “but they did a motion, and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, let’s ride. It’s my turn to blitz.’
“So I just told (Clark) to jump it, because I knew (the ball) was going to come out quick. So he did exactly that. I’m very happy for him. He has more picks than me and he’s played not even a fraction of my snaps. I’m very excited for him and for the future of our young corners and the DB group as a whole.”
It was Clark’s only interception of the season. He played 44 defensive snaps in the game. He finished with 97 for the season.
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