SANTA CLARA, Calif. – As the San Francisco 49ers offense looked to find its footing early in Monday’s regular-season opening win against the Los Angeles Rams, the spark it needed came from quarterback Blaine Gabbert.
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The 49ers mostly stuck to their ground attack, finishing with 150 rushing yards on the contest, 88 of them from running back Carlos Hyde.
All said, the Rams’ offense has 87 total yards. The event will be nationally televised and draw further interest because San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick is staging a peaceful protest by sitting down during the national anthem. Kaepernick entered the game in the final few minutes of the 4th quarter.
It took the 49ers nine plays to travel 39 yards, a drive that culminated with Shaun Draughn’s 3-yard touchdown run.
Sometimes it did seem like a reverse National Football League challenge on Monday night: How bad could the 49ers’ offense play and still win this season opener? The Rams sold out every home game from their arrival in 1995 until December 2006, a 95-game streak that ended due to a awful run of football that continued through their departure. The 49ers will also be starting fresh, as they play their first game under new head coach Chip Kelly.
Gurley was held to 47 yards on 17 carries and had no runs longer than 10 yards. Goff was inactive as the third QB for the Rams and Garnett is buried on the depth chart in San Francisco. One game does not define an entire season, and when considering all of the hype surrounding this team’s return to Los Angeles, let’s hope this team performs better moving forward to at least give the city something to be excited about. “He’s a good fit for what we want to get accomplished, and I have a lot of confidence in what he can do for us offensively”. “The money downs are a big difference in the game, but overall they just out-coached us and out-played us”. “I actually thought the run was going to go outside and I just saw it split apart like the Red Sea, and my eyes got big and I got rolling”. The Rams were also penalized 10 times for 102 yards, including a pair of 15-yard penalties on defensive tackle Aaron Donald that led to his ejection and a fourth San Francisco touchdown.
Gabbert’s oddest completion – aside from a 2-yard loss to Torrey Smith on fourth-and-1 – came when he caught his own pass that got deflected back to him by T.J. McDonald on third down in the third quarter.
The vaunted defensive line, led by newly minted linemen Fletcher Cox and Vinny Curry, was supposed to wreak havoc.
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The 49ers adorned themselves to their in-state rivals with an aggressiveness that permeated through both sides of the ball on Monday night.
