TEMPE, Ariz. -- It’s easy to laugh now at the film of Tommy Kelly's blocked field goal.

At the time, however, the Arizona Cardinals weren’t aware of the situation they had just avoided by having nine men on the field for a fourth-quarter field goal attempt by San Francisco kicker Phil Dawson.

“When they showed us in the special-teams meeting, I was like, ‘Damn,’” Kelly said. “They could’ve just raised up and ran the ball over there where Pat (Peterson) was at. So, we got lucky. It was our day.”

The Cardinals got away with one.

It would’ve been almost too easy for Niners holder Andy Lee to take the snap and just run left with it. The Cardinals had lined up six of their nine players either in line with or to the right of San Francisco long snapper Kyle Nelson. But the Niners had overloaded the left side of the line, sending five blockers to the left of Nelson, who ended up being responsible for three Cardinals.

“We could’ve done nothing about it,” Kelly said.

“They would’ve trampled Pat P., that’s all that would’ve happened.”

It was Arizona’s 17th blocked field goal since 2008, which leads the NFL.

Cardinals coach Bruce Arians wasn’t surprised the Niners didn’t run a fake field goal down 20-14 on fourth-and-17 with 13:40 left in the game -- even though they had the manpower to bulldoze their way for a first down.

“Those points are too critical, especially at that point,” Arians said. “That was going to get it back to a three-point game. We did have our corners out there, but our outside 'backers came off the field.”

Rookie Kareem Martin said he was one of the 'backers Arians was talking about.

It was either impressive or lucky that Kelly was able to get his hand on Dawson’s kick with just nine players on the field. Dan Williams, who was on the field, said he didn’t know the Cardinals were short-handed but said the momentum swing carried Arizona through the rest of its 23-14 win.

Next time, however, the Cardinals will stick to blocking kicks with everyone on the field.

“We’re going to try that with 11 guys next time instead of just nine,” Arians quipped. “We had the right guys in the right spots, we just didn’t have anybody on the outside of it.”