5-0 the last 5 Niner-Ram games. A full 60 minutes. Finally. Huzzah!
Kyle Shanahan shook off the black clouds swirling around Levi’s stadium, and his oversized head, and played a full game off smash-mouth football. 44 runs? Damn. There were no huge run plays but there were enough 6-10 yard runs to keep the Rams vaunted pass rush of Aaron Donald, Leonard Floyd, and newly acquired Von Miller at bay. Jimmy G did his best Alex Smith impersonation, going 15-19 for 182 with 2 touchdowns. 8-8 for 89 and 1 TD in the 1st half.
The much-maligned defense made a stand early with Jimmie Ward picking off a misguided throw to the newly acquired Ol’ Dirty Beckham. He paid dividends for us by giving up on the deep route that Jimmie picked off. That led to our 18 play, 11 minute, 93 yard TD drive. Jimmie was then handed a pick by Tyler Higbee and the rout was on. The Rams helped immensely with two crucial 3rd down drops by Higbee and Kupp, and sloppy play in general by the Rams.
The Rams looked very similar to the 49ers last week. They came in with their splashy trade deadline acquisitions expecting us to cower at their greatness. Instead we stuffed the ball down their throats, shit on their lawn, controlled the line, and took it to them all night.
Biggest play of the game, and likely the season, came early in the 4th quarter with the Niners up 24-7 and facing a 4th and 5 on the Rams 40. The game was still in doubt, and a turnover on downs could have changed the outcome. Instead, Kyle strapped in on and went for it. Daniel Brunskill took on and held offf Aaron Donald one-on-one as Jimmy G hit resident stud Deebo Samuel on a shallow cross that resulted in a 40 yard strike. 31-7 sealed the game at that point. The rest was gravy.
Got to hope that the team understands that they CAN play this way. They ARE a talented team, and CAN make a playoff push. We play the two teams in front of us for the 7th spot. Carolina and Minnesota, so we have a bit of control over our situation.
San Francisco 49ers Forever 
First the Rams defense is built to get after the QB, they don’t/can’t stop the run effectively. The Niners have played teams that can stop the run. So if Kyle thinks he can run 40+ times a game, he is only fooling himself.
The Rams are 10th in run defense (we are 24th, BTW). It’s not like they give up a ton on the ground.
Kyle has been abandoning the run way too early in a lot of games throughout his tenure here. He needs to realize that by simply dropping Jimmy back all the time results in disaster. He stuck with the run last night and it won the game for us.
I still don’t get how this team can look so good one game and look so bad for a bunch of others. I guess we match up well, but this team seemingly neutralizes Aaron Donald at will while other teams can’t even come close to doing that.
Very surprised at how well the 49ers ran. And that Kyle stuck with it. Deebo in the backfield was a wrinkle no one saw and it worked out well.
Kudos to Shanny for scheming new plays and actually calling and executing a solid game plan.
Still alarmed at the lack of pass rush. Ryans needs to do more that trot out the base defense 90% of the time. Where is Charles Omehinu? Lenoir and Thomas barely saw the field as well.
Did anyone miss McGlinchey? I didn’t. Like I said on Skeebs blog, after last week I had thrown in the towel with this years team. And, even after loving what I saw last night I am not ready to say we are back. We got to run about 3/4 more game like last nights before I do that. Jimmy was on last night, our offense pounded the Rams defense, got a couple of turnovers and we didn’t turn it over at all. That is a win.
The bad news is rookie guard Jaylon Moore got hurt in the early in the 2nd quarter. Jimmy threw nothing but checkdowns and still struggled in the 3rd quarter. If not for the drops by the Rams, the game would have gotten interesting.
By far best game all around they’ve played so far, so challenge is to show they can play this well vs. someone not named Rams. As Unc has said, lack of pass rush troubling and not yet convinced they can pass protect either. Long way to go lot to still be decided. Griese did mention Lance name a bit last night…
getting Ward back was enormous. He makes the secondary exponentially better. We are too thin across most areas of the team to make a run, though. Unless you think nobody else is gonna get hurt the rest of the way…..
The NFL is all about attrition now. The league should really expand rosters, but that is a topic for another day.
The Rams barely tested us deep. I was very surprised by that. We did have our safeties playing CF early though. Everyone is getting hurt all the time. No one in the league is really head-and-shoulders above the rest save maybe Tennessee. If the Niners can play to their level, they should beat Jax, Atl, Minnesota, Cincinnati, and Houston. That’s 9 wins. Their toughest games are Seattle (and they may crater), Tenn, and LA.
Our schedule isn’t really hard. Take care of our division games and we will be in the playoffs.
Fuck me and Unca can this team ever get off the injury jinx? Elijah Mitchell it’s reported suffered a fractured finger and is having surgery today..
Availability unknown till later in the week against Jaguars..Looks like Jeff Wilson could be the cowbell coming up and maybe needed to be rostered in FF..
Oh boy. Elijah Mitchell broke his finger and had a pin placed in it today. His return is ‘indefinite’.
Here comes Wilson. Or Sermon? You know, they guy we traded up to get?
It won’t be Sermon still buried even under where the dog sleeps in the doghouse..
Shanny would speed dial Ken Willard are Paul Hofer first for a carry are 2..
I’d prefer Gore, but hey . . .
Well, they are ‘hoping’ Mitchell returns to practice this week, so he may not miss much time, if any. Jaylon Moore’s knee injury didn’t reveal any structural damage, so good news there. Crazy how the line played better across the board with McGlinchey out.
49ers are finally starting to wise up, they just released CB Dre Kirkpatrick hopefully paving the way for more playing time for Thomas and Lenoir going forward.They could do the same with Josh Norman as well imo.. Thomas and Lenoir have upside over has beens Kirkpatrick &Norman, start getting your draft picks in there now..
Finally. They wasted 2 seasons on Hurd. The old Nate Davis syndrome.
Gave Kapler Manager of the year, for those of you who are Giants fans also
Gabe
Good for him. Everyone was laughing at all the coaches he brought to the team, but no one is laughing now after they won 107 games with a makeshift group.
The play didn’t work, but watch Kittle pancake Von Miller. Welcome to the NFC West, Von!!
Weird but funny
That was fun.
New thread is up.