Folks, we made it. The San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams will do battle in Australia on Thursday night. While the warm-up is the Super Bowl rematch tonight, the rumble down under feels like the official season opener, with the matchup getting more attention after an offseason of adding Myles Garrett and two new secondary members, plus the return of Aaron Donald, who is inactive tomorrow.<\/p>\n
As for the 49ers, the team feels overlooked and disrespected. All the talk surrounds the defending Super Bowl champs and the excitement over the \u201csuper team\u201d Rams. The 49ers have heard the chatter, and I\u2019m fairly certain Kyle Shanahan will use the talk as extra motivation for himself and his team.<\/p>\n
Here are three things to watch on Thursday night:<\/p>\n
Quick game throws for Brock Purdy<\/p>\n
In the 49ers\u2019 \u201cupset\u201d victory over the Rams with Mac Jones under center, the 49ers took what the Rams gave them and got the ball out quickly, leading to YAC opportunities. Now, that was with Demarcus Robinson, Kendrick Bourne, and Jake Tonges as the leading targets. The 49ers will have Mike Evans, George Kittle (in some capacity), Christian McCaffrey, and Purdy leading the offense.<\/p>\n
In 2025, the 49ers ranked 12th in the NFL with a 68.4% short-throw rate. The Rams also ranked 12th, facing 67.8% short throws. Now, adding Myles Garrett, the 49ers will likely lean toward heavier personnel and try to get the ball out quickly, forcing the Rams\u2019 cornerbacks to tackle in the open field. Jaylen Watson and Trent McDuffie are two of the better tackling cornerbacks, which proves the Rams understand how they will be attacked in 2026.<\/p>\n
Stay ahead of the sticks, stay away from third-and-long situations, and run the football enough to keep play action in the arsenal has to be the goal.<\/p>\n
The Rams\u2019 defense could shift personnel styles in 2026<\/p>\n
Last season, the Rams played base defense 26.7% of the time, ranking 21st in the NFL. As far as nickel goes, their 41.6% was 29th in the NFL. This season, the front four and back end are the Rams\u2019 strengths. However, the linebackers are a soft spot for the defense, and Shanahan has been known to put linebackers in a blender in coverage.<\/p>\n
You have to imagine the Rams understand that and could lean into more \u201cdime\u201d looks. Bringing more defensive backs on the field would make second-level coverage less of a concern. The 49ers\u2019 advantage in this situation would be to run the football against a lighter defensive look. The Rams ranked fourth in the NFL with a 53.6% light box percentage.<\/p>\n
The chess match between Shanahan and Chris Shula is going to be primetime television.<\/p>\n
The loss of Alfred Collins is such a brutal way to lose another defensive tackle. Regardless of your thoughts on his play, the 49ers are down bodies in the middle of the defensive line. Osa Odighizuwa improves one spot, but essentially a rotation of C.J. West, Kevin Givens, and James Thompson, Jr., is what the 49ers will be working with.<\/p>\n
Sean McVay spams \u201cduo\u201d runs and will likely double that rate knowing the 49ers are down at defensive tackle. With the fourth-highest EPA\/rush of 0.03 last season, the Rams will look to continue that efficiency. Essentially, their only hope is to hold blocks in place and hope Dre Greenlaw and Fred Warner can fly into run gaps to slow Los Angeles\u2019s rushing attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Folks, we made it. The San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams will do battle in Australia on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,51924,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-459067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers-analysis","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}