The San Francisco 49ers will play the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday in one of three late afternoon games in Week 3 of the NFL 2015 regular season today. There's a lot of stake for both teams today; the Cardinals are trying to make it three straight wins to go 3-0, where as the 49ers need a win to avoid slipping to 1-2. The game has a scheduled start time of 4.05 p.m. ET and takes place from the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. The game can be watched on TV on the Fox network or online through live stream via the link below.
Last week the 49ers suffered an embarrassing 18-43 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, and need to immediately bounce back with a road win today against the so-far undefeated Arizona Cardinals.
At the top of the priority list for today's game for the 49ers will be to sort out their defense, which was cruelly exposed by the Steelers last week, and find their feet again in their running game.
Sorting out the defense could be a big job if last week was anything to go by. Both in the pass rush and the within the secondary, the 49ers looked out of sorts and the stronger teams in the NFL will have seen those weaknesses and will look to exploit them when coming up against San Francisco unless the 49ers shore things up.
Meanwhile, the 49ers come up against a Cardinals team high on confidence following their 2-0 start to the season. Last week they demolished the Chicago Bears 48-23, with Carson Palmer in excellent form again.
Palmer will be central to whether the Cardinals can repeat that performance today to take down the 49ers, and oppositely the 49ers will be gunning for Palmer to try and make sure he never gets comfortable in today's game.
This is a big NFC West division contest, and could have big implications later on in the season when things go down to the wire.
Week 3 is already crunch time for a number of NFL teams. Earlier this week on NFL Thursday Night Football, the New York Giants faced a massive game against the Washington Redskins. The Giants were 0-2 after their opening two games, and they knew if they slipped to 0-3 their season was almost guaranteed to be over before it had even got going.
The 1-1 Washington Redskins were hoping to move to 2-1 to compete with the NFC East division leading Dallas Cowboys, and at the same time all but eliminate one of their main rivals from contention for the postseason.
But when the push came to shove the Giants showed that they are still alive and kicking. New York came out of the blocks fast, building a 12-0 lead after the first quarter, and it was a lead they would refuse to give up despite some strong pressure from the Redskins in the fourth.
The Giants had lost their opening two games after getting themselves into winning positions and some must have thought they were heading the same way on Thursday. However, they finally held on to a second half lead and clinched a 32-21 win, with the highlight being a 30 yard Odell Beckham Jr touchdown catch.
The Redskins must have seen how the Giants collapsed under pressure in the fourth quarter against the Dallas Cowboys and Atlanta Falcons in Weeks 1 and 2. But even though the Redskins pushed hard in the fourth, scoring 15 points in the final quarter, the Giants responded to the pressure and recorded 14 points themselves to keep themselves in front.
For today's game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Arizona Cardinals, the game has a start time of 4.05 p.m. ET and can be watched on TV on the Fox network or online through live stream by clicking here.
