During his postgame interview, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Mac Jones said Kyle Shanahan told him he was pissed off that the Niners were underdogs against the Los Angeles Rams. The 49ers were missing most of their receiving production and starting quarterback. Oddsmakers thought the road team would be lucky to score 17 points with how shorthanded they’d be in SoFi Stadium.
Shanahan told Jones to let it fly, and Jones obliged en route to a thrilling victory. Let’s talk about the winners and losers from Thursday night.
Winners
Kyle Shanahan
Shanahan cultivated an immaculate game plan to play keep-away from an offense that was inevitable.
The 49ers ran 19 more plays than the Rams and possessed the ball for 13 more minutes. San Francisco ran the ball 33 times. Mac Jones had 32 attempts under ten yards. All in an effort to bleed the clock.
Shanahan defended his decision to run the ball at the end of regulation. He can be forgiven for a decision to kick a field goal on 4th & 2 from the two-yard line. Adrian Martinez would have been tasked with getting the offense in the end zone for his first career pass attempt on the road against the reigning division champs.
Shanahan deserves some grace for those calls after deciding to go for it on fourth down earlier in the game in his own territory with the lead. Even better, there was no hesitation.
The 49ers were aggressive on their first two offensive drives, which led to points. Shanahan is no stranger to winning at SoFi Stadium, but you could argue this was his least talented team offensively to go into Los Angeles and come away victorious. It was undoubtedly the most impressive win, considering the roster.
Against a defensive line that had the fourth-highest pressure rate and a defense that was seventh in schedule-adjusted passing efficiency coming into Week 5, Shanahan called touchdown drives of 72 and 91 yards to open the game that combined for over 12 minutes and had three other 12-play drives with Christian McCaffrey and a bunch of other players nobody else wanted at the skill positions.
Shanahan is now 3-0 with a backup quarterback and 2-0 in the division. Last night was a peak Shanahan game that should make him the frontrunner for Coach of the Year. Shanahan showed why this team will always have a chance as long as he’s in control.
Fred Warner
Dee Winters is playing about as well as any linebacker can, and he’s not close to the level Warner is playing at.
Warner had 12 tackles, four of them stops, was targeted four times and only allowed one reception, and was seemingly in the right place when the Niners needed him to be every time. On a third down, Kirk Herbstreit blamed Warner for a coverage bust. But you could tell by the All-Pro’s reaction after the play that it wasn’t on him.
The 49ers have been blessed with stud linebacker play for the past 15 years, but Warner might be the best one yet.
Kendrick Bourne
Much like interceptions, you should be good enough to overcome a drop. Now, Bourne’s drop, for the second week in a row, could not have happened at a worse time. Instead of going in for another score, the 49ers punted it back to the Rams, and they scored a touchdown.
Bourne lined up illegally during the two-minute drill before the half and was flagged for a penalty. That would be the last time anybody had anything negative to say about Bourne.
Bourne had more yards on in-breaking routes against the Rams than he did all last season with the New England Patriots.
In what effectively became a dink-and-dunk offense, Bourne had eight first downs, forced three missed tackles, and added 57 yards after the catch. The rapport between him and Jones was palpable. There’s a trust between the two, almost as if they’ve played together before. Bourne caught both of his contested situations and proved he was not only worthy of staying on the field but also good enough to be the go-to guy on third downs. It was the best we’ve seen Bourne look. He was superb.
Mac Jones
On the first drive, Jones left the pocket when he didn’t have to, and Colton McKivitz was flagged for holding. After Bourne’s drop, Jones did not come back to KB, who was wide open, on the next passing play, and instead forced an incomplete pass. In overtime, on second down, Jones took a sack that effectively ended the drive. Those were the only visible mistakes Jones made on 50 dropbacks.
That’s right, 50. Jones has 39, 41, and 49 attempts in three starts as a 49er. Brock Purdy has attempted 40 or more passes just once. Yes, these are different circumstances, but Shanahan trusts Mac with the keys in this offense.
Jones made a concerted effort to get rid of the ball before Jared Verse and the Rams’ pass rush could decapitate him. They tried. And came close on numerous occasions. Jones was under pressure on only 24 percent of his dropbacks, largely because he got rid of the ball so quickly, but he was hit seven times. These weren’t love taps, either.
There were a couple of instances where you wondered if Jones would stay on the field. But he never missed a snap, gutted out an improbable win, and put the offense in the right spots routinely. The 49ers won a divisional road game after targeting Kendrick Bourne and Jake Tonges 11 times while their quarterback was gimpy.
Jones is now 3-0 and likely has earned himself a contract with another team once his time is up in San Francisco after Thursday night. Anybody with eyes could see that Jones was in pain. But he never waved in the pocket, and threw for 19 first downs and a pair of touchdowns in a difficult situation. That’s what a leader looks like.
Losers
Connor Colby
This section will feature the rookie class. The secondary and offensive line are feeling the ripple effects of first-year players. Let’s start with the seventh-rounder.
In fairness, he should not be playing, nor should the 49ers count on a player like Colby so early in the season. But injuries have forced their hand, and these are the results.
Colby put up a valiant effort in his first start, but it’s been downhill since.
Colby allowed a pair of quarterback hits, a sack, and four total pressures. When you count the number of missed blocks, busts, and non-competitive plays, Colby was even worse than those numbers would suggest. We’re not going to sit here and poo-poo a seventh-rounder saying, “He sucks!” Colby was taken in the round he was for a reason. He was thrown to the wolves, and he’s getting chewed up, as expected.
Upton Stout & Marques Sigle
Defensive backs are inevitably going to get beaten in the NFL. That’s the job that they signed up for. Sigle has been picked on all year. It doesn’t seem like he’s been in a bad position. It does seem like Sigle has no idea how to play the ball in the air.
On one play late in the game, Sigle could have had an interception if he had played the ball instead of the man. The replay showed Sigle running by the receiver and completely whiffing on his hit. If Sigle’s eyes found the ball, it was an easy interception. On an end zone target, the ball went right through Sigle’s hands.
Stout’s mistakes are becoming more common. He’s prone to looking into the backfield when he should be looking at his man. It’s cost Stout in previous games, but “bad eyes” were an issue against a quarterback who spots mistakes from a mile away.
Stafford took advantage of Sigle and Stout’s worst traits to the point where if they had the ball, the rookies would be exploited — hence, Shanahan’s keep-away strategy.
Kudos to Robert Saleh for rolling with his rookies and letting them fail. This is how development works. Stout and Sigle need these reps. They have to learn on the fly in September and October so they can be reliable down the stretch and for a potential playoff run.
It would be easy to pull the plug and put a veteran like Chase Lucas in. That looked to be the case in the fourth quarter, when Lucas was on the field. However, Kyle Shanahan said Stout left due to an ankle injury.
Lucas looked like a starter during the preseason when Stout was out with an injury. The second Stout was healthy; he returned as the starter. That was a sign that the coaching staff had the utmost confidence in their third-round pick.
It wouldn’t feel real if the rookie defensive backs were flawless against Sean McVay and one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, with two All-Pro-caliber wide receivers.
Now, you could argue they were on the other end of the spectrum in their first true test against an upper-echelon offense as pros. Stafford targeted the rookie duo 15 times. He completed 13 of those throws for 224 yards and 10 first downs.
If you look at the Super Bowl champions from previous seasons, the adversity they went through early in the season paid off in the playoffs. The 49ers are hoping for a similar outcome with their rookie class taking lumps during the early portion of their schedule.
It wasn’t just the rookies. Renardo Green was the only player who held his own in coverage, and some of his incompletions were due to off-target throws. Stafford added +14.9 in EPA in this game, per Next Gen Stats. For reference, the 49ers quarterbacks through five games have a total EPA of +20.1.
Thankfully, for the 49ers, Saleh brought his four-leaf clover on the trip to Los Angeles.
Winners
The 49ers luck
There is no shame in being lucky.
The Rams fumbled on 1st & 10 from San Francisco’s 24-yard line. Joshua Karty was wide right from 53 yards. With 1:07 remaining in regulation, the Rams fumbled one yard away from the end zone.
There were multiple drops that would have been first downs, and timely penalties when the Rams were in the Niners’ territory. The luck pendulum swung in the 49ers’ way on Thursday night.
Christian McCaffrey
Christian McCaffrey forced more missed tackles (12) in Week 5 than in any other game as a Niner. McCaffrey averaged 2.6 yards per carry. Two-thirds of his rushing yards came after contact. McCaffrey picked up a pair of first downs on the ground, but most of his production came through the air.
McCaffrey caught eight of his nine targets for 82 yards and caught a touchdown in the red zone. Five of those receptions went for first downs. McCaffrey had 78 yards after the catch. Shanahan is finding ways to get his best player in 1-on-1 situations, and his best player comes through time and time again.
Alfred Collins
Collins is another rookie forced into the fire. Kalia Davis is expected to miss the next two games. Collins saw a season-high in snaps on Thursday night. Of his 40 snaps played, 30 of those came as a pass rusher. Collins had a quarterback hit and was on the field for the final play in overtime.
Collins is why the game went to overtime, and Mac Jones didn’t need to make a game-winning touchdown drive in regulation for the 49ers to win. How many times during the week do you think the Rams’ running backs practiced protecting the football from a 335-pound peanut punch?
That was the play of the game.
Eddy Pineiro
Eddy Pineiro made all six of his kicks against the Rams, including a 59-yarder:
Any other year, the 49ers would punt the ball. Pineiro has given Shanahan every indication that he can nail any kick from any distance. Pineiro’s perfection can’t be ignored as we recall all the ways the 49ers won.
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