{"id":470571,"date":"2026-09-21T04:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T04:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/470571\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T04:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T04:16:12","slug":"here-were-the-keys-to-the-sf-49ers-home-opening-win-over-the-dolphins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/470571\/","title":{"rendered":"Here were the keys to the SF 49ers’ home-opening win over the Dolphins"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 49ers made their stateside debut<\/a> on Sunday afternoon at Levi\u2019s Stadium, and their home opener could not have gone much better.<\/p>\n

If there was any travel hangover<\/a> after beating the Los Angeles Rams<\/a> in Melbourne, Australia just over a week earlier, it wasn\u2019t noticeable. The 35-13 win over the Miami Dolphins was efficient and dominating. Brock Purdy competed 20 of 22 pass attempts<\/a> \u2014 18 in a row at one point \u2014 and he, Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle and Kyle Juszczyk each scored touchdowns.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, given the franchise\u2019s history, this is the first time the 49ers have opened a season with consecutive victories of 20 points or more. And it might just be the start. The 49ers play two more games at home before going back on the road, starting including Sunday against Arizona, which lost 31-7 to the Seattle Seahawks.<\/p>\n

Here are a few nuggets from the win over the Dolphins.<\/p>\n

Turning point
The 49ers only had two series in the first half and scored both times, but the 14-6 halftime lacked a dominating feel. Kittle took care of that. In just his second game back since tearing his Achilles in the wild card round against the Philadelphia Eagles, Kittle took Purdy\u2019s first pass of the second half 40 yards to the Dolphins\u2019 25. Two plays later they connected on a 12-yard touchdown pass, and the rout was on.<\/p>\n

Stat that tells the story
Using a ground-and-pound attack and a short passing game that kept the chains moving, the Dolphins held the ball for 19 minutes in the first half and went into halftime trailing by just eight points. But when the 49ers defense revved up, the Dolphins\u2019 third down conversions slowed down and the script flipped. The 49ers had the ball for 19 minutes in the second half as the defense got quick stops, the offense hummed and the rout was on.<\/p>\n

Good company
With a pair of 1-yard touchdown runs, McCaffrey became the fourth-fastest player in the Super Bowl era with 100 career touchdowns. Fifty of those have come with the 49ers since the former Stanford star arrived in a mid-season trade with Carolina in 2022.<\/p>\n

McCaffrey, 30, has scored 100 touchdowns in 114 games, with only LaDainian Tomlinson (89 games), Emmitt Smith (93) and Shaun Alexander (96) getting their faster in the Super Bowl era.<\/p>\n

They said it
\u201cI had too many shirts on underneath. I thought it was a little colder out. It looked cloudy. I came out and it felt muggy. I got a little OCD in me, so I don\u2019t want to fidget and think about all game, so I ran back in and took a layer off. \u2014 Kyle Shanahan, explaining why he made an abrupt u-turn and briefly went back to the 49ers locker room before going on the field for the start of the game.<\/p>\n

Wait, what?
The 49ers have had all sorts of star power on both sides of the ball over the years. But somehow this is the first time the franchise has produced victories of 20 more points in consecutive games to start a season.<\/p>\n

The 1994 team, which would end that season by demolishing the San Diego Chargers 49-26 in Super Bowl XXIX, did it a franchise-record seven times during the regular season. They opened the season with a 44-14 win over the Raiders, but then lost at Kansas City. That team went 13-3 during the regular season but really hit its stride late in the season, producing five of its seven 20-plus wins to end the regular season and then routed the Bears 44-15 in the divisional round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n

The 2022 team did it an NFL-best five times, but lost the opener 19-10 at Chicago.<\/p>\n

Medical tent
Already missing rookie De\u2019Zhaun Stribling (ankle), the thin 49ers wide receiver corps took another hit against the Dolphins. Mike Evans hurt his hip in the fourth quarter and did not return to the game. Demarcus Robinson came up limping after catching a 20-yard pass in the second quarter, and put no weight on his right ankle as he went to the blue tent. Robinson was then carted off and later ruled out.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next
Coming off their season-opening game in Australia, the Niners get to stay home for two more weeks. Their Week 3 game is against the Arizona Cardinals next Sunday, Sept. 27 at 1:05 p.m. The 49ers don\u2019t go back on the road until an Oct. 11 game at Seattle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 49ers made their stateside debut on Sunday afternoon at Levi\u2019s Stadium, and their home opener could not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[389,184,7,392,332,949,402,752,395,101,296,103,102,88,397,198,104,106,105,200,127],"class_list":["post-470571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-alameda-county","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-contra-costa-county","tag-east-bay","tag-football","tag-inside-sports","tag-nfl","tag-peninsula","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-san-jose","tag-san-mateo-county","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-south-bay","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470571","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=470571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}