Revenge of the Birds
The Arizona Cardinals were looking for a win on Sunday against division rival San Francisco 49ers. Instead, they came away with a new NFL record despite the 41-22 loss.
RELATED: THE GOOD, BAD, UGLY FROM THE 49ERS LOSS
The quarterback for the Cardinals, Jacoby Brissett, set a new NFL record in this contest for the most completions in an NFL regular season game. The new mark is 47 completions, which bested the old mark of 45 completions set by Drew Bledsoe in 1994 and later tied by Jared Goff in 2019.
After the Niners’ loss at the post-game press conference, Brissett was told of his accomplishment, which will now find him named in the NFL record book. He responded:
“Man, I’ll throw for three yards and win right now. I genuinely feel that way.”
Arizona trailed all game to the 49ers, including being behind 19-7 after just the first quarter. Brissett found his team behind as much as 35-10 going into the final stanza. The Cardinals haven’t been able to run the ball for several games now since they lost their two starting running backs in James Conner and Trey Benson. Against San Fran, Arizona had 36 rushing yards. So, Brissett was called upon to air it out.
Thus, tossing the pigskin 57 times with the new record of 47 completions. Brissett didn’t sound pleased about having his name etched into the league rule book that was set during a loss:
“I promise you man, I can care less about that part of it. Man, I hope somebody breaks it tomorrow or whenever. I mean, I just want to win.”
Brissett’s large number of pass completions obviously resulted in a significant amount of total passing yards in the contest – a career high of 452 yards. This number is now ranked seventh in Cardinals history, with the leader being Kurt Warner, who threw for 472 yards in 2008.
San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan had his own opinion once he heard that Brissett had broken the completion record against his 49ers defense:
“I’ve got a lot of respect for Jacoby every time we played him. He looked like that all week studying him and looked like that in person. He made a few of those big throws down the field where we were hitting him as he let it go and he hung in there. Real tough player.”
Brissett came to the Cardinals this past offseason on a two-year contract and is playing in place of the injured Kyler Murray.
