It’s 10 days until 49ers training camp-week begins! We want to look at each opponent and provide a reason for and against the 49ers beating them. We’ve included a poll for the community to vote on whether they expect a win or a loss. We’ll see what kind of prediction this provides at the end.
Week 1 @ Minnesota Vikings
Week 2 vs. Detroit Lions
Week 3 @ Kansas City Chiefs
Week 4 @ Los Angeles Chargers
Week 5 vs. Arizona Cardinals
Week 6 @ Green Bay Packers
Remember that part where we talked about the brutal schedule the 49ers have the first half of the season? Well it’s not getting any better. Sure this is a home game, but it’s also the Los Angeles Rams, a team that pretty much won the arms race at the cost of a sketchy future.
Reason For: The 49ers short-pass game
No doubt the Rams have a stout running game, some nice targets in the passing game, and a dominant defensive line. The one thing the 49ers can do—and their offense does well—is the short passing game. It just so happens they got a shot in the arm with it by signing running back Jerick McKinnon.
McKinnon might not be able to run between the tackles carrying the ball, but with Jimmy Garoppolo’s quick release, the 49ers can definitely get some nice dump offs as the Rams line comes after him. Sure, it’s nickle and diming at its finest, but it seems like something the 49ers could exploit against this Rams defense. From there, they can maybe open up some deeper routes depending on how much time Garoppolo has before getting crunched.
Reason Against: The Rams defensive line
When putting them up against each other, the 49ers offensive line is much improved since 2017, but the Rams improvement is far greater, especially to a defensive line that was solid in 2017. While Garoppolo has a quick release, getting the ball out is going to require a new level of agility, as is being able to do it time and time again just before getting flattened. The 49ers bread and butter is the outside zone, and they have the guy to do it in Jerick McKinnon, but the Rams line definitely has to know it’s coming and may have the speed to stop anything too significant from happening.
All this said, if the Rams line is on, it’s going to be a very long day. Especially if the 49ers are forced to play catch-up late and Garoppolo needs his offensive line to buy some time. On the flipside, this line provides a great test for the 49ers line to see where they are at. Given this is Week 7, things should be tweaked to the point where we can see where the 49ers offensive line is as a whole. If they lose the battle, at least we can see how badly it was lost.
If you can’t see the poll, click here.