49ers manhandle Rams on Thursday Night Football

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1:40Robert Mays: Welcome to The Athletic Football Show, brought to you by the U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card. Well, now flying halfway around the world the day before the game seems a little f***ed up, huh?

1:52Derrik Klassen: halfway through that game I was like I probably didn't think hard enough about how stupid that might have been I think like when when the Rams do it with all of their track record and all of their sports science you're just like okay I guess this is fine and like after two series of washing Matt Stafford look completely washed and out of sorts I was like no no I mean I should have thought harder about how dumb this was that's what I think it was for me because I think like some of the other players looked fine at certain points. And I'm sure they did a lot of research on this that had something to do with like how well your body adjusts and your rhythm and your mind and all that stuff.

2:28Robert Mays: They did a ton of research about it. I mean, it was a very considered decision. Exactly. But that almost seems like it overlooks like our 38-year-old quarterback sitting on a plane for 16 hours is not good. And I know they had the lay down seats or whatever, but like - As if that's revolutionary. I've been in a lay down seat on a flight. I flew 10 hours to Turkey this summer. I'm six months older than Matthew Stafford. I was not doing well the next morning despite the lay down flight. Would you have wanted to play pickup basketball the next day? No, I looked getting out of bed like he looked on that quarterback sneak.

2:59Robert Mays: That's exactly the mode that I was in for the first three days I was there.

3:03Derrik Klassen: You have any friends who are just full of shit, but they say it so confidently that you don't question them? That's what McVay was with the travel stuff? That's how I feel right now.

3:13Robert Mays: That's how I feel after this game. I'm joking about this. I don't want to spend too much time on it because I don't want to frame this solely as a, well, the Niners flew early, that was the right move. The Rams flew late, that was the wrong move. There were some football things that I think are really worth digging into when it comes to the Rams-specific weaknesses that we should talk about. Obviously, there are specific strengths that the Niners really showed off in this game that are absolutely worth digging into. So I don't want to spend this entire show making it all about who did the right or wrong thing based on the travel, but I wanted to kind of just get it out of the way because we do have to address it in some capacity.

3:49Derrik Klassen: You have to address it, but A, it lets the Rams off the hook. Yes, and they shouldn't be left off the hook. It was like a two-year decision on your part to do this, so I don't want to hear it as an excuse. And B, the 49ers kicked ass. They kicked ass. So I absolutely do not want to diminish what they did. It was so, I mean, you can point to a dozen different things, but we were joking about it, Derek, in the third or fourth quarter once it was getting pretty obvious that this was over. A lot of things worth being excited about. But if I'm a Niners fan, watching Fred Warner and Nick Bosa just pick right back up and we spend so much time saying, what can this defense be if these two all pros play like it?

4:28Derrik Klassen: Well, they looked like it and the defense shut down the best offense in the NFL.

4:34Robert Mays: There's a lot to be excited about with what both of those guys showed. I mean, Fred Warner just solely the drive with the goal line stand was plenty to get excited about. You would have thought he didn't miss any time. He looks perfect. I mean, yeah. And Bosa, to me, the Bosa thing, I mean, he has a couple really, a couple pressures early on where you notice that. To me, the thing where Bosa really stood out was the run defense in the second half. I mean, he had two TFLs on the exact same drive, two run steps on the exact same drive, where he's spiking inside and then spinning back outside and then squeezing and spinning back outside.

5:05Robert Mays: Those plays were huge because at a certain point in the first half, my biggest concern with this game, and it's still a concern I have about the Niners, the Rams were blowing them off the ball in the first half. Blowing them off the ball. And I still am concerned about what the interior for the Niners is going to look like over the course of the year. But Bosa had a couple of those early down run stuffs. Upton Stout had one. And as soon as you got the Rams into a second and 10 on any single series in this entire game, it was over. Because they could do absolutely nothing in the drop back pass game because of the way the Niners were playing against them and some of the limitations.

5:39Robert Mays: but as soon as they were able to get them behind the sticks, anytime they had the ball, the Rams had absolutely no answer. Which, you know, there are some Rams issues that we can talk about with that, but I also think that is like great proof of concept for what you hoped the Niners defense would be because I think we all said off of last season, the defense overall was bad, but you could see it with the secondary. Like the secondary had enough talent that like, hey, they can kind of run with people. They can play some man-to-man here. They put more DBs on the field in this game. They put like eight snaps of dime, which they did not really do at all last year.

6:08Robert Mays: I had 17 of them total last year. There was a Jack Jones PBU against Devontae Adams, and I was like, Renero Green is playing. Why is Jack Jones in? It's like, oh, they have six DBs on the field. And so that just a little wrinkle we have not seen very often from one of the most nickel-heavy teams in the NFL over the last couple years. Yeah, so to just see the DBs actually get a chance to make plays and not have to cover guys for four seconds because the pass rush was doing something, that was really encouraging to see. Because if you're trying to sell yourself on the Niners getting back to... Top 12 defense, you know, obviously they were incredible tonight.

6:41I don't know how much that's going to last over the course of the year, but if they can get back to top 12 after what last season was, it's going to look a lot like that.

6:47Robert Mays: I think there were a lot of elements of the Rams offense where the Niners made them play a game they don't like to play. And the best example, if you look at their numbers, I think at some point in the fourth quarter, looking at next gen, the Niners had played about 45 % cover six over the course of this game, which is exactly what the Seahawks did to the Patriots yesterday. And that was one of the issues for the Rams in the first half. I think Stafford in the first half in this game averaged 11.7 air yards per target. They were just trying to chuck the ball downfield against all these cover six and cloud looks.

7:21Robert Mays: And that's exactly how the Niners wanted them to play. And when the Rams weren't blowing them off the ball, were having some sort of easy completion on play action on early downs, they had absolutely no answers. And so they tried to make Matthew Stafford make the same set of decisions that the Seahawks forced on Drake May yesterday. and he had the same problems. Just consistently trying to force the ball downfield against those looks rather than checking down. And there were multiple instances in the first half where he had checkdowns and just decided not to take them. Had checkdowns, decided not to take them, or some of those throws were there to be made.

7:54There was a third down, I think he missed a Devontae. He was just off. The decision-making, the accuracy,

7:58Robert Mays: he played so poorly in this game.

8:00Derrik Klassen: Did he have, he probably did, I'm reacting live in the moment, but did he have a nice throw in this game?

8:07Robert Mays: The first in-breaker to Puka was decent, and then the second one he tried to throw was a little bit off too. Yeah. I mean, you can count him on one hand, the amount of decent throws we saw from the reigning MVP in this game.

8:16Derrik Klassen: The explosive to Puka was way more a great play by Puka. The one that got him down into the red top. Way more of a great play by Puka. He had like a half no look on a dig.

8:27Robert Mays: That was like the only, to Puka, that was the only decent throw. It was like, oh man, that's a Matthew Stafford player that we saw the entire game. And this was actually the swing point of the game. I almost think one of his best throws was the third down when they were on the goal line. And he puts it low on Puka's back hip where only he can get it. And it's a great catch by Puka. It's a great throw by Matthew Stafford. It's almost a touchdown. And then the very next play, they don't get the run that they won on the sneak. And it flips the game because the Niners then take that. They go 99.5 yards to go and score immediately after that.

8:58And it flips the game. Because I think at that point it was 17-7. Obviously, Rams were down. if they score there and make it 17-14, it's a football game. And so the fact that they lose the ball there, they don't get that. Niners immediately go down and score. I mean, the game kind of just ends right there.

9:15Derrik Klassen: And they went 99 and a half yards, really. Yeah. Like Stafford went down right near the goal line, just shoved it right down their throats. It was pretty beautiful to watch, honestly. And it's not as if the Niners' offense was bad in the first half and getting Mike Evans in the slot, getting, I think Mike Evans picked up all their third downs before halftime, but the way they were able to get McCaffrey going coming out of halftime and their rushing success rate, particularly in the second half, was absolutely incredible. I think they were at 46 % on the night, which is like... The Niners? Or was it better than that?

9:55Robert Mays: 53.6 % in an extra night now. And that went down. I didn't mean to shortchange you. That went down over the course of the game.

10:01Derrik Klassen: 56 has got to be one of, it's probably better than any of their numbers from last year,

10:06Robert Mays: if I had to guess. They were really middle of the pack, the dead on average run game last year. I want to talk about that. The last thing, the third down thing is a great thing to bring up. The Rams are two of nine on third down in this game. One of them was a third and one play action dump off, which barely counts as a third down. If we were, and this, I tried to do this, in certain terms all summer when I was talking about how scared I was about the way that we were talking about the Rams. There are no f***ing super teams in professional football. That's not how this works. There are 53 guys on the roster.

10:40Robert Mays: There are 22 starters. You can't build super teams. Every team has relative weaknesses. And we saw so many of those relative weaknesses for the Rams in this game. Third down was a defined weakness for the Rams last season. When you're putting them in drop back situations, It's not the way their passing game wants to operate. It's not the way the offensive line wants to operate. When they were in third and tens, third and longs in this game, that's where you saw their weaknesses in pass protection. That's not what the tackles want to do. And that's where you saw the Niners and the speed they have defensively show up.

11:14Robert Mays: I think teams are going to be able to push San Francisco around. But if you're going to get into those, if we can get one negative play, and it's third and ten, we saw the juice Romello Haidt has on a twist. Upton Stout gets there on a pressure. Osu Diggie Zua has a pressure. Those types of players, you're going to feel them if you can do that. And that's where the Rams are the weakest. That's where their offense is the worst. And we saw that over and over again tonight.

11:37Derrik Klassen: And how much more likely is it that you can get one of those negative plays if Bosa's capable of three TFLs in a day? He's the one making them. That's all you need. Well, Warner for that matter. I mean, Warner with a PBU on the very first play of this game, turning it into second and 10, which could have been a pick, by the way. Like I said, I was so impressed by, not to diminish anybody else, because I thought the Amador Lenore was really good in this game, but the elevating factor that those two have on this group of players is fantastic.

12:09Robert Mays: So you look at the two of nine that the Rams had, which was a fake two of nine again, because one of them was a third and one, and you juxtapose that with the seven of 12 that the Niners had in this game. The plan they had on third down, to me, let's go to the other side and the relative weaknesses that the Rams have. The Rams' entire defense in this game, but the first and second level of the Rams' defense in this game got their asses kicked. Just straight up got their asses kicked. And on third down consistently, the Niners' plan in this game was twofold. We're going to use a lot of motion and misdirection to stretch the defense horizontally and then attack the space in the middle of the field with Mike Evans consistently.

12:49Robert Mays: And what Mike Evans did to Quinton, Quinton Lake had a PBU and an interception, every third down they were picking on Quentin Lake in this game. They were picking on the second level in the passing game on third down, and they were picking on the second level with the run game the entire day. My takeaway in this game, the headline thing that I'm looking at is what the Niners run game looked like overall. I mean, it's going to be so fun to go back and watch every single way they use Kyle Juszczyk with some of those, I don't even know what to call the motions. They're like a 45-degree angle running start.

13:21Robert Mays: Three L motions where he's going back into the backfield and back up. They did it in so many different ways. And they were really picking on the second level with all that misdirection, all the different runs, concepts they were getting to. And the front for the Rams just got pushed around in this game. The other thing that if I were a Rams fan that would worry me, we talked so much this offseason about the Niners being banged up. if Myles Garrett is 80 % moving forward, he did not look right in this game whatsoever. And it was the lack of pass rush production, but it was also, if you're Myles Garrett, you can't get pinned on pin pull by Debo Samuel.

14:02No. That can't happen.

14:04Robert Mays: You can't lose one-on-one kickout blocks to Kyle Juszczyk, who weighs 235 pounds. And that was happening consistently. They were winning their, they were, every single one-on-one was a loss for the Rams up front. And it was allowing the Niners offensive line, the guards just consistently getting to the second level over and over and over again throughout this entire game. It was a masterclass. I thought Connor Golby had a pretty good game. He was one of those like, it's one of those things. We didn't know if he would start. We didn't know if he would start. And it's like, it's, I've admittedly been beating the drum of like, it's been three years now of like the offensive line talent kind of deteriorating.

14:41And I'm like, now you're telling me you're going to start a seventh round pick from last year, who we don't even know if he's going to start. I'm going to say, there was talk that a rookie was going to take his job.

14:50Robert Mays: Because he played last year. Because he played last year because of the shuffling that they had. Exactly. Their offensive line looked great and the run plan looked phenomenal. And the other thing I'd throw in there, Caelan Black has juice. And so if you can take some of the workload off of CMC, I mean, I think that's the other part of this that's potentially really exciting. I thought he looked like he had more juice than he did last year. Well, that's, if you're not going to give him the ball 30 times a game, And you might be able to maintain some of that.

15:15Derrik Klassen: It's probably too simplistic to, like, attribute it all to this, but I think McCaffrey had two carries at halftime, and they came out of the half, and he went right to work. And his first two carries of the second half were explosives. It's nice to have somebody that can take some of the load off of his legs and the beating that he takes.

15:35Robert Mays: We're going to take a quick break here, and then we're going to come back and talk about just some of the other things that really stood out about the Niners' performance. Football season has arrived, and with the U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card, you earn an unlimited 2 % cash back on every purchase, including at the stadium or at home watching on a brand new TV. Score big with unlimited 2 % cash back on every purchase. Visit usbank.com slash smartlycard to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is U.S. Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions may apply.

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18:41Robert Mays: If you were trying to build the optimistic case for why the Niners could be scary, I think the return of Bosa and Warner getting the defense back to an above average level, which we'll see about that. I mean, this is a weird game. I think the early returns are very good. I still would be a little bit itchy about what was done to the interior for the first part of this game by a Rams offense that ultimately did not play very well. And even that only really kind of stopped because the game started to get out of hand. So I think the Rams just didn't feel comfortable running up the middle like that anymore.

19:09Robert Mays: Yeah, I mean, they still finished this game with like a 50 % rushing success rate. I mean, they were running the ball at will. In the first half, the Rams had a 69 % rushing success rate and the Niners were at 67.

19:20Derrik Klassen: I mean, they were, the Rams were, you already mentioned it, but the Rams were just moving the Niners three, four yards off the ball. Like what felt like every snap.

19:27Robert Mays: It felt more devastating because it was just duo and they were just moving them in mass off the ball. But what the Niners were doing, even if stylistically it was a little bit different, was just as impressive over the course of this entire game. And I think that brings me to, again, the idea of the optimistic case was Bosa and Warner lifting the defense and then the guys on offense, even if they're a little bit older, being healthier and contributing and Kyle Shanahan being Kyle Shanahan. and we saw him do that tonight. Like this game overall is just a reminder on so many different fronts of what makes Kyle Shanahan special.

20:05Robert Mays: The design and the run game, and again, getting back to last year, they were average on the ground. They were average. I was like, all right, what is that going to look like? He clearly was in the f***ing lab the entire offseason based on what that thing just looked like. It was unbelievable. But then that combined with just the overall plan offensively with the way that they were using all that motion, the space that they were creating, And the last part is the plan they had for the front. Just the sheer, even on the touchdown, to Demarcus Robinson, right? Two tight ends, little, both in like little, just offset wing formations.

20:38Robert Mays: They chip, get a little bit of help. Purdy sees the alert on that, spear out to Demarcus Robinson, lets it go, touchdown. The four hands on Miles Garrett every single play, and then the other guys on that front, guys you should feel over the course of the game, you never felt one time. and I think that's a testament to the Niners and I think that would be scary as shit if I were in that Rams building and was rooting for that team. It's funny, that play, the Demarcus Robinson one, I want to talk about a couple of things with passing offense. One, the fact that they got proof of concept in every way for the passing offense is awesome.

21:12You get the shot play, which you're going to need. This is not a team that I think is going to throw a ton of them, but the fact that when you call them, you've got to make them respect it and the fact that they found it, I think that's obviously huge.

21:25Robert Mays: The perfect example of that is this team sees so much quarters because defenses feel like they can squeeze you. So if you're going to get that amount of quarters on early downs, you got to be able to hit one of those every once in a while to put the fear of God in people. And so to see them do that in week one, boom, it's so nice to see.

21:42Derrik Klassen: I do love that it was Demarcus Robinson. And we should know... Who will never die. A, yes. B, Drazon Stribling, obviously, left this game. if there's one down note from this whole thing, it's that you lose Stribling. But I agree with you. And I would have liked to see a deep shot to Mike Evans in this game, but just him being what we hoped he could be and also posterizing somebody for a touchdown, like immediately you're like, yes. That's the second one. It's like Mike Evans just like dunking on Jalen Watson, just like turns around, grabs it, and that's exactly what you paid him for. And then the third one, which like we know that Purdy can do, but they end up in like a little bit of a scramble drill situation in like the high red zone and he just bails out to his right, Debo climbs a little bit and Purdy makes an excellent throw and the last thing I want to say about Purdy I actually think that if we're going to move into a world where defenses are going to make you just throw the underneath stuff all the time and just like take it and take it and take it he's kind of perfect for it and Kyle Shanahan's offense I think is pretty well crafted to allow for that like the last play I'll bring up it was right after the Matthew Stafford gets stuffed and the Niners have a second and 10 backed up on their own one.

22:54It's an under center straight drop back with chips on both sides. It actually looks a little bit like the DeMarcus Robinson play. And so you get run threat because you're under center. You get pass pro help because these guys are chipping and then I think Kittle leaks out into the flat to the left, into the boundary. But the quarterback can get to those short throws quicker because he's not like turning his back, looking for the deep shot immediately. He's like eyes aware the whole time. so as soon as Kittle's ready, he can go and he can throw it. And it's like, Purdy kind of is the perfect quarterback for that style of offense.

23:22And they've leaned into it.

23:23Robert Mays: They've leaned into the under center non-play action as heavily as any other team in the league over the last couple of years. And he's really good at it. Because you're right. Him, you get all the benefits. You get all the benefits with none of the dropbacks because it's the same as the touchdown where being under center, there's just a mindset. I remember talking to coaches last summer about this where why are we getting back to a place where we're seeing more under center straight drop back, what are the benefits of it? And I think one, defenses have checks, dot checks or shotgun checks. And so if you're under center, they're going to do things they might not do if you were in the gun.

23:57Robert Mays: And two, it plays with expectations. Like if you see the quarterback under center, you have a certain set of expectations as a defender. And so if you're Cam Kinchin's on that play, and it's not all his fault, like the corner on that play, who I think was Watson. Does McDuffie? On that side? On the touchdown. On the opposite side. On the backside corner is supposed to get back to that play. And the reason he doesn't is because there's a big kind of, there's like a big in breaker that threatens off field just enough for him to sit on it, which is really good just route distribution and timing and depth.

24:30Robert Mays: But either way, if you're in quarters on that play where he's under center, the idea of this guy's going to run straight past me on a straight under center drop back, it's not even crossing your mind. Yeah, you're like, no, there's no way. It plays with expectation. And so to me, it just gets back to all the layers you see when the Niners are humming. And you saw every single one of them. And the idea that it extends to the run game where we didn't see them be dominant there last year, that to me is the most exciting takeaway full stop from this game if you're rooting for that team.

25:00Derrik Klassen: Kyle Shanahan is this guy all the time. But I also wonder how much extra oomph he put into this one. Because he seemed unhappy about the arrangement here from the very beginning. like all the way back in February. He wasn't happy about having to do this. And I'm sure he's tired of hearing people talk about

25:19Robert Mays: the other team in the division. The other two, yeah. The other two teams. I mean, I guarantee you there's a little bit of, you probably shouldn't forget about us. And I respect that. And I think that I was probably guilty a little bit of that this summer. But I'm still worried about how creaky they are. But the offense we knew has that gear. We know has this gear. We know this.

25:38Derrik Klassen: I'm going to sound like an asshole and I don't mean to. The thing that gives you pause about the Niners is something that's never going to go away. That's right. That is the issue. But if they're healthy and humming, you should absolutely take them seriously as a threat to win everything.

25:53Robert Mays: The funny thing about Evans is, beyond the quality of what we saw from him and him contributing, the usage, it's a weird mix of stuff. We joked about this in real time. For the most part, they're using him in the slot on third down. He's just super Jawan Jennings for most of this game. But then in the moment where you need him to be Mike Evans, picking the ball off Jalen Watson's helmet, he's still able to do that. And so it was just such a cool blend of everything you could want to see from them.

26:22Derrik Klassen: It actually makes me think of Devontae last year for the Rams where remember like the first three weeks, they went at him in the red zone like four times a game. It was the only thing they did. It was their entire plan. Is this ever going to work? It took forever to pop. And so to get Evans a touchdown on like his first red zone look, that's nice.

26:40Robert Mays: And I honestly, you say that jokingly about Devontae. To me, that does kind of speak to some areas where the Rams have historically had relative weaknesses. Third down, red zone. That's a fun answer that we're just going to spam Devontae slants and one-on-one opportunities in the red zone. It's not a great plan. No. It's not like a fully formed plan. And so, again, I have all the respect in the world for McVay, but there are certain things that this team has not done great where when you get, when you play against Raheem Morris, who knows exactly who you are, who is the head coach of a Falcons team that gave you problems last year, who was in your building and has a very intimate understanding of maybe how to attack you.

27:23Robert Mays: Everyone else gets paid too. Everyone else has good players. There are a lot of good coaches. Like the idea that they were just going to run roughshod through this entire season is so stupid. Like it's just, I never understood it. And that voice was always in the back of my head all summer about this idea of like, we shouldn't be talking about them this way. Like no one should be talking about an NFL team this way because it's never, ever real. It never turns out this way.

27:48Derrik Klassen: Also, even in this Stafford stretch, like they won a Super Bowl and they've been contenders for most of this time. They goof like this all the time, whether it's because of injury or something else. They were the four seed the year they won the Super Bowl.

28:04Robert Mays: Yes, and that was, they threaded a needle.

28:06Derrik Klassen: That year. They so much. They blew home field advantage last year. Like they straight up blew it in the final month of the season. And so I agree with you. Like I did not see this coming. I don't want to act like I thought the Niners were going to beat them. Of course not. But all offseason, I've just been like the Rams are going to be great. But the Rams version of great is probably like 12 and 5, maybe 13 and 4. Because some dumb shit's going to happen for one reason or another.

28:31Robert Mays: The galaxy brain take I am willing to put my name on as we sit here 25 minutes into this. I think this is a good thing. Yes. Yes, I agree. I think they needed a little bit of like, oh shit. They got kicked in the teeth. Yeah. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing from an intangible perspective. I think it's a good thing for messaging. I think it's a good reminder of what life in the NFL was really like despite how people talked about you all offseason. Their weaknesses are real. like the things that they showed that would give me pause about their chances over the course of the season whether it's the quality of the second level some of their issues on third down what the offensive line looks like in pure drop back situations all the things that you probably would have focused on them all rearing their ugly head in week one is a bad way to start but I think again on an intangible messaging level them getting their teeth kicked in to start a season where they're on 60 minutes last week and that's how we're talking about this team.

29:28Robert Mays: I don't think that's a bad thing.

29:29Derrik Klassen: To cross over on the 60 minutes is like that. You're too famous for a football team. I'd said it all offseason.

29:37Robert Mays: When has this ever worked out when we talk about a team like this? It doesn't. It never has.

29:42Derrik Klassen: I will say this. And actually, I was going to say you can call it Cope. Don't even call it Cope because I didn't even pick the Rams to get to the Super Bowl. But I think this is worth pointing out. And I was talking to somebody about this today. You can ask any coach, you can ask players in the modern NFL. September, I think even like Bill Belichick said this when he was still coaching in the NFL. September is training camp now, especially when you have a team like this. We talked about it during the game. The Rams whole rookie class was inactive today. This is an old team. Miles Garrett, we'll see the severity of the injury, but like you're going to keep Miles Garrett on ice during camp.

30:16Derrik Klassen: You're going to keep Matthew Stafford as far away from harm as you possibly can. And so if you have to play your way into game shape over the course of September, that's not ideal. But I do think that's a very real thing. And so if the Rams are taking their licks in the first six weeks of the season because of how they approached it, they're going to get clowned on. But I think it'll be okay in the long run. And kind of to that point, they need to get through week five and they'll be fine. They have a couple of tough games and then in the middle of that season, they get like Arizona, Las Vegas, Washington.

30:48I hadn't looked at their schedule. If their season before their bye becomes like, okay, that's a good, they can round into things.

30:55Robert Mays: Thankfully, they're going to be able to acclimate pretty quickly when they come home.

30:59Derrik Klassen: They're still operating in Eastern time, Pacific time. Humble yourself. Yeah, we don't have to go back to the time change thing, but it's crazy in retrospect. I do think, though, the Stafford, how he looked specifically is the part of it that I'm most curious about. A lot of the other stuff I can kind of like talk myself into it just being a weird game and all this stuff. but like if he just doesn't...

31:20Robert Mays: There's no way to know what's just weird and what's real. You know, like him... That's why I don't want to overly panic. Not looking right. I was like, if it still looks like this in October, that's going to be a problem. I'm not worried about that. I just don't think... I mean, during training camp, whenever he practiced, things looked good. I just think, again, it's a weird game. It's so much of this. And again, there are things that you want to react to. You just don't want to overreact to them. I think the Rams will probably be okay.

31:48Derrik Klassen: Oh, they're going to be good. Yeah, exactly. I think the Rams are probably going to be okay. Have you looked at their early season schedule though? Like, or did you just say that? No, I've looked at it. The next month is tough. After that, it's fine. Giants at home next week, but then it's at Broncos, at Eagles, Bills. And almost all of those are primetime, by the way. Blowing this game really messes up your margin for error. And I hate to say blow.

32:11Robert Mays: It didn't blow anything. They played a good team in weird circumstances and that team jumped on them.

32:17Derrik Klassen: Exactly. I don't mean to act like this was like an easy game, but to no show completely. I mean, you're going to be favored in most of the games that you play. It is. And to not even look like you belonged on the same field. Week one is weird anyway. It is.

32:30Robert Mays: Let alone when you're flying halfway around the world to play this game. The game that you mentioned when we were talking about it in the preview show, that year where the Packers got their doors blown off against the Saints in week one. By the James Winston Saints by that point. It's like there's already an element of weirdness to this. And then so to add the layer of the travel, I had nothing to take away from the Niners because again, you don't want to overreact, but you do want to react. And some of the things they're doing offensively and what the run game looked like, I want to react to that kind of stuff.

33:00Robert Mays: They deserve a ton of credit, but there are so many caveats about the weirdness of week one already baked in beyond the weirdness of this game on top of it. And I think the last thing I'll say about that, sometimes the weirdness of week one is like teams that we didn't think would look good looked really good. And then it's like that ends up being fake. Like the Steelers and the Jets last year. That's like the key one. But the Niners team, it was like not off the board that they could be a good team. So when they come out and kick ass, it's like, oh, maybe they can just do that to people. This is, it's the best case scenario for what the offense could look like.

33:31Robert Mays: And Kittle barely played, like 40 % of the snaps. And so you're going to get that on top of it. And so this Niners offense at full strength with a run game that feels rejuvenated and they've really added to it. This was always a team that could have the best offense in the league, a top three offense in the league if everyone stays healthy.

33:50Derrik Klassen: That was never off the table. Can I tell you all from personal experience, one of the most electric vibes you can experience is a victory flight home from an NFL road game. And one of the most awkward vibes you can personally experience is flying home after you got your shit kicked in. And that's like, you know, New York to Dallas is four hours. That's a three-hour flight. 15 hours with the Rams right now? Like, that sounds like help. And vice versa, the Niners flight is just going to be a party. It's going to be amazing.

34:22Robert Mays: The way that it works now is you can get the tape on your iPad immediately. Right? And so let's just say you have a bad game. You have a three-hour flight. You go over the game once. You can distract yourself even if it's an ugly experience and the flight is over. Now, if you're somebody on that staff, you go back and re-watch the game and then you get to sit in it for 12 hours of how shitty it feels.

34:43Derrik Klassen: Like, you know, when I used to fly with the Cowboys, like, You can do the tape. And by the time you're done going over the tape in detail, and maybe the coaches will go have some conversations with some players, by the time you're all done doing all of that, maybe you get 30, 40 minutes of sleep, you're landing. And it's time to get off the plane and go to work. You can do all of that and have nine hours to kill. That sounds absolutely brutal.

35:06Robert Mays: I've had some regrets about not loading enough shit on my iPad movie-wise on a long flight, let alone if you just experienced what that game was like for the Rams. All right. Hell of a couple games to start this thing off. I had some surprises, some things that were really fun to dig into. We will be doing it again right here on Sunday night. For those of you unfamiliar, if you're just visiting us for the first time, we do a live Sunday night show every single week from right here. We will be right here on YouTube, live on Sunday night after week one wraps up. Very much looking forward to that.

35:40Robert Mays: Thank you to all of us for joining us. That's all we got. We'll talk to you in a couple of days.

36:13Derrik Klassen: each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to Discover. Terms apply. See discover.com slash five for details. Hey everyone, it's Chris Guillebeau here, host of the Side Hustle School podcast. This episode is powered by AT &T Business. In my early days, I did some of my best work in parked cars or coffee shops, but when I landed my first big contract, I realized I couldn't bet my future on a public connection that cuts out if someone turns on a blender. As a small business owner, you're already wearing at least 10 hats. You shouldn't have to be your own IT department as well.

36:48That's why I rely on AT &T Business. They keep your connectivity reliable so you have one less thing to worry about. Powered by AT &T Business. Built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com.

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