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“This is why you play the game! ,” quarterback Nick Mullens yelled as he broke down the post-game cheer in the 49ers’ locker room. It was all smiles on the home side, as San Francisco finally break through without quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, 34-3. It might not have been the Thursday Night Football showdown everyone was expecting, but it turned into a 49ers’ rout of their cross-town rivals. Never did I think that Shanahan and his third-string quarterback could run circles around a healthy, Jon Gruden-led Raiders’ team, but oh boy did it happen on Thursday.Shanahan’s group came out blistering hot on an opening touchdown drive and didn’t look back the rest of the way. Let’s take a look at the pre-game keys and see how the 49ers performed on a short week.1. Take the ball out of the 49ers’ quarterbacks hands and lean heavily on the running gameI figured that un-drafted free agent Nick Mullens would struggle in his debut, especially on a short week, under the lights in an extremely complicated offense. Subsequently, that meant running backs Matt Breida and Raheem Mostert would need to shoulder the load on offense.Boy, could I have not been more wrong. Mullens finished the night 16-of-22 for 262 yards, three touchdowns and a passer rating over 150 — the maximum score is 158.3, just saying. The 49ers’ ran 32 rushing plays, compared to 22 passing attempts, but the number is slightly skewed because San Francisco led by so much at the end of the game, forcing them to run the ball more.In the pivotal moments early , Shanahan put faith in his third-string quarterback and decided to let it fly against a poor Raiders’ pass defense. The 49ers definitely didn’t follow this key closely, but managed to easily win on Thursday night.2. Limit the Raiders’ most productive pass-catchers, TE Jared Cook and RB Jalen RichardRaiders’ quarterback Derek Carr has a lot of weapons at his disposal, but prefers to throw to large target tight end Jared Cook and shifty running back Jalen Richard. The 49ers haven’t been very effective in covering these two positions, due to multiple linebacker injuries, so it was an area of concern.In the absence of linebacker Reuben Foster, linebackers Fred Warner and Malcolm Smith stepped up, making numerous plays in the passing game to limit Carr’s favorite targets. Richard led the Raiders in catches with four for 45 yards, while Cook only had two catches for 20 yards. The 49ers’ linebackers did an outstanding job in coverage, limiting the yards after the catch. This allowed them to get off the field in key third-down situations.3. Don’t give Derek Carr extra chances against the 49ers’ defenseWith a third-string signal caller in for the 49ers, I was terrified of the potential turnovers on Thursday — but Mullens did a fantastic job protecting the ball.Unlike backup quarterback C.J. Beathard, Mullens tends to release the ball sooner, preventing defenders from creating a sack or strip fumble. The former Southern Missisippi quarterback was particularly accurate too, not allowing Raiders’ defensive backs a chance at interceptions.Fumbles have been another issue for the 49ers, but it’s something they didn’t allow on Thursday. With zero turnovers on Thursday , San Francisco employed its best defense against Carr and the Raiders — keeping the 49ers’ offense on the field.With the Giants up next on the schedule, will Mullens and Co. be able to string together two wins? Josh Rosen got word a couple of days before the game that the Arizona Cardinals would take a deep strike on the opening play in hopes of waking up a struggling offense.It couldn't have worked any better.Rosen threw a 75-yard touchdown pass to fellow rookie Christian Kirk on Arizona's opening snap and the Cardinals then turned the game over to their opportunistic defense to earn their first win of the season, 28-18 over the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday."We were just trying to get a spark in any way possible and just try to get our offense going," Rosen said. "We haven't been scoring as many points as we wanted to. I think we took a really good first step."The Cardinals (1-4) gained just 145 yards the rest of the game but it didn't matter because the defense took the ball away from the 49ers (1-4) five times, including a 23-yard fumble return for a touchdown by Josh Bynes and two more turnovers that set up short TD runs by David Johnson on drives that went a combined 44 yards.For a team that had scored just 37 points through four games, fewest for the franchise since 1945, and gained just 834 yards in the first four games, tied for the fewest in the NFL in 16 years, this game signified progress."We'll take all of the ugly ones we can get," receiver Larry Fitzgerald said. "It wasn't pretty but we started off with a bang. The fireworks came early and they came late. So that was good."Fitzgerald had just two catches for 35 yards but proved to be a capable decoy on the first play when free safety Adrian Colbert jumped up in coverage, allowing Kirk to get open deep.That was one of the few poor plays by San Francisco's defense, but that was enough for a loss."It was just an undisciplined play by me," Colbert said. "I saw Larry flash and it was just a bad play on my part. It is something that I have to correct."Here are some other takeaways from the game:STATISTICAL MISMATCHThe Niners had the decided edge in yardage (447-220), first downs (33-10) and offensive plays (92-49), but still ended up on the losing side. San Francisco set a franchise record for plays and had the most for any team in a loss since 2013. But the five turnovers , including four by backup quarterback C.J. Beathard, were the most for the team in five years."You look at a lot of those (stats), it's hard to find how you lost a game," coach Kyle Shanahan said. "Then it's very easy when you look at the turnover column. I haven't been part of any game, I don't think many people have, where five turnovers to zero leads to a win. We have to improve that drastically to have a chance."TAKE IT AWAYThe Cardinals had plenty of contributors on defense on a day when they could have easily been tired. Tre Boston and Bene Benwikere had interceptions, Bynes had the fumble return for a TD after a strip sack by Haason Reddick, Chandler Jones had his own strip sack and recovery and Patrick Peterson returned a fumble 49 yards to set up Johnson's first TD run."We just knew that we had to dig deep," Jones said. "It wasn't about being tired, but it was about walking off that field with a win. That was our biggest thing tonight."BREIDA'S ANKLEMatt Breida got off to a fast start for the 49ers with eight carries for 56 yards and a 5-yard TD catch in the first quarter before going down with a sprained right ankle. The injury initially looked to be much more serious, but Breida was able to walk on it during the game and isn't overly concerned."I didn't know what happened at first," he said. "It was just a little tweak. I have been battling through injuries the past two weeks. I was just trying to get out there and play. I will be all right."BEATHARD'S DAYBeathard fell to 1-6 as a starter in his career as he once again held onto the ball too long and made too many mistakes. Beathard completed 34 of 54 passes for 349 yards but threw two interceptions and lost two fumbles."You can't win ball games turning the ball over five times," Beathard said. "I feel like we played well in all the other aspects except for turnovers. Just got to take better care of the ball."