SANTA CLARA — Divisional games are always a slog, right?

The stakes are high, the bad blood is boiling, and the teams know each other so well that it turns into a chess match.

That’s the nice little story we tell ourselves to explain away the first two-and-a-half quarters of the snooze-fest that was the 49ers-Cardinals game on Sunday.

For a while there, it was a brutal watch. Two offenses that looked like they were allergic to the end zone. Kicks and punts and something even worse than three-and-outs — 12-play drives that only gain 30-something yards and no points — were the order of the day.

This is what we used our precious Sunday on?

But just as the Bay was, collectively, about to change the channel and start mowing the lawn or washing the car, the game shifted. It became a game.

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