Week 8 Game Preview: 49ers @ Rams

By Scooter_McG

49ers vs Rams. Shanahan vs McVay. Brunskill vs his son. 49ers fan takeover of SoFi Stadium. This is a matchup the 49ers have dominated since 2019, and in recent seasons the game at SoFi Stadium has effectively been the 49ers 9th regular season home game. 

This game also marks a potentially pivotal moment in the respective seasons of these two teams. The 49ers, now with a record of 3W-4L, currently owns the tie-breaker against the Rams courtesy of their victory earlier in the season. But lose this one and the 49ers lose that advantage with a split series, while also dropping to a perilous 3-5 record. The 3-3 Rams are currently sitting in the 7th seed in a highly congested NFC following their bye week and will be desperate to avoid falling below .500 and avoiding a series sweep by the 49ers.

Given the congested nature of the NFC, losing this game won't spell certain doom for either team. But it will make a trip to the playoffs much more difficult. 

Neither team is playing well at the moment, either. The 49ers are coming off back-to-back embarrassing losses - one against a Falcons team they should have beat, and one a blow-out against a Chiefs team that tore apart the previously heralded 49ers defense. The Rams won their last game before the bye (somewhat ironically against Christian McCaffrey, in his last game as a Panther), but it was far from a convincing performance and followed back-to-back losses against the 49ers and a Cowboys team led by Cooper Rush. 

The talk out of Rams camp coming into this game is that the Chiefs provided them the blueprint for how to beat the 49ers. Personally, I've always thought when teams start talking about following another teams blueprint to beat an opponent it means they are out of their own ideas. But now it is up to the 49ers to show that last week was the aberration, not the new norm.

With Christian McCaffrey now having a full week of practice with his new team, the expectation will be that he can take on a larger workload this week and should be the lead back for the 49ers. Deebo Samuel has been ruled out with a hamstring injury while Jennings also appears likely to miss the game, which will increase the importance of CMC's role as both a runner and pass catcher. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he leads the 49ers in both runs and catches this week. But with Kittle and Aiyuk also in the mix this doesn't need to be a one man show. 

The Rams on the other hand have shown some some glaring deficiencies through six games. The most notable is their OL, which has struggled in all phases of the game. The Rams running game has been almost non-existent, while Stafford is under duress far too often. The Rams best RB, Cam Akers, has also gotten himself on the outer with McVay and is unlikely to even suit up in this game. On defense, the Rams have struggled to find a pass rush to support Aaron Donald - stop Donald from ruining your day and you have probably gone a long way to buying 2.5+ seconds for your QB. 

So for this game I think it comes down to two key aspects for the 49ers to win the game:

• First, win the trenches. As outlined above, the Rams biggest weaknesses in 2022 can be found on both sides of the trenches. Sounds weird to say that given they have All-World Aaron Donald on defense. But if the 49ers OL can contain Aaron Donald, they 'should' be able to handle the rest of the Rams DL. On the other side of the coin, the 49ers DL has to stand up (figuratively - really they need to stay low) after being dominated two straight weeks. The Rams OL is in disarray and if they can't handily win this matchup the state of the 49ers defense is in far worse shape than we thought.
• Second, WIN THE TRENCHES! Ok, technically this is only one key aspect. But it honestly is such a big key to this game I think it bears repeating. If the 49ers can dominate the trenches, and really they should (though Donald will no doubt win his fair share), the game should be theirs for the taking. 

There are of course other areas the 49ers have to take care of, and areas of concern. First and foremost is getting back to being a run-oriented offense - though to me that comes back to winning the trenches. 

I am also concerned about the defense being down both Al-Shaair and Greenlaw, as well as still missing their two starting DTs. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot of nickel and dime defense this weekend, both because of the Rams personnel packages which favour 3 WRs and because the 49ers personnel suggests three safety looks will get the best players on the field. But that will put pressure on the DL to stuff the run. 

So, again... it comes back to winning the trenches in this one.