49ers-Rams Week 5 TNF Recap

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Stafford gets under center at the eleven yard line.

00:00:02
Speaker 2: He takes it, he turns, he gives the Karen Williams, he gets packed.

00:00:06
Speaker 1: I think he's short, Tim, I think he's short.

00:00:09
Speaker 3: And the forty nine ers start in the field.

00:00:11
Speaker 2: It is all over.

00:00:13
Speaker 1: The forty doers have won it in over time here in La.

00:00:17
Speaker 2: What an unbelievable win. High drama finishes in favor.

00:00:23
Speaker 3: Look a mass unit, the forty nine ers, and they earned it.

00:00:27
Speaker 4: The mass unit forty nine ers do get it done. We'll put an asterisk on that urn because the Rams made a lot of mistakes. Welcome in to NFL Daily Thursday night.

00:00:36
Speaker 5: Football recap after claybound here with Nick.

00:00:37
Speaker 3: Shook joining you for the comfort of our homes in a game that was in my adopted home of Los Angeles, California, where the forty nine ers should come up with an improbable win against the Rams, but.

00:00:49
Speaker 5: Matthew Stafford falls to one in four. It's so far.

00:00:53
Speaker 4: Against Kyle Shanahan and these forty nine ers. Good to see you, man, What a finish, what a game?

00:00:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, good to see you too. I'm trying to think about one in fourth so far against Kyle Shanahan. That one game he won would have been the NFC Championship game, the way to those Super Bowl victory.

00:01:07
Speaker 4: I believe, so if I'm going to check that, uh while we do this, But yeah, the one being a doozy, the one.

00:01:12
Speaker 2: That mattered, but the other ones, Yeah.

00:01:15
Speaker 5: There's some weird ones in there, and this was one of them.

00:01:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was definitely weird. I mean, I feel like this was a bit of a marathon. It was an odyssey of sorts. I felt like I needed a nap after it was over. And it was also a fantastic chess match. I think of two coaches from the same tree. And again another great example of why we I wish we could have every game in prime vision because it just opens up what you can see and what you could see. There was then both using their approaches that whether they're going to come into tight formation and try to capitalize outside the numbers, whether they're going to motion a lot, whether they're going to capitalize on one defense suddenly switching the man in the fourth quarter and victimizing you with DeVante Adams, with some potentially illegal slash, illegal screens like setting some natural rubs, all sorts of different things. It was just back and forth chess match. Chess piece moved here, another piece moved here. Felt like I was sitting in a park and guys are making a move and hitting the clock like it was. It was a fantastic back and forth, A really entertaining game, got weird at times to finish, a little anti climactic depending on who you were rooting for, I suppose, but a doozy of a Thursday night football game that may make us reconsider the state of the NFC West.

00:02:21
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:02:21
Speaker 4: Absolutely, again, a game that I thought was gonna be a rock fight show. It was gonna be fifteen to twelve. Ultimately, they were going up and down the field, and so let's look at the history on those chess moves and start this game with There's there's dealing, and then there's how Mac Jones started the game. On the first two drives, he completed eleven of thirteen passes, one to Jake Toon just for a touchdown. Another one where coming into this game, considering the injuries and the way Kendrick Borden had played for shout out for what we'll.

00:02:47
Speaker 5: Discuss as the game goes on.

00:02:49
Speaker 4: I thought this was going to be all CMC and it started with a touchdown pass to Christian McCaffrey and let's let's watch it.

00:02:56
Speaker 5: Listen. I love the map too.

00:02:58
Speaker 1: McCaffrey's got right now, Max Shawn's closed mcafe.

00:03:02
Speaker 5: He's got it.

00:03:04
Speaker 6: Touchdown, touchdown, touchdown forty and it's a two scored lead here early in the second quarter.

00:03:13
Speaker 4: All Niners at that point shook. And when the call can see the matchup on the goal line and everybody knows, you know it's not you don't want to be out there all along with twenty three surprise surprise, the results.

00:03:24
Speaker 5: Of the touchdown. Yeah.

00:03:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very standard roll out play that you run on the goal line. You just hope to create enough of a crease that your defenders never going to catch up and undercut that play, And of course that's what happened. But it really set an early shocking tone that the forty nine ers were able to grab a fourteen to nothing advantage.

00:03:38
Speaker 2: It felt like they had.

00:03:40
Speaker 1: Prepared perfectly for what they were going to deal with in terms of disadvantageous circumstances, not having brock Party, not having Juwan Jennings, not having Ricky Piersoll and being forced to.

00:03:50
Speaker 2: Play with Mac Jones, who, by the way, a couple of.

00:03:52
Speaker 1: Weeks ago suffered a knee injury that he was dealing with against the Cardinals that limited him in that game. Now, they didn't need him last week, but they certainly needed him tonight and he needs his inner strength to be able to get through this game. So it was really important for them to get off to that hot start. They basically realized, we're going to take what the defense gives us. We're going to move down the field efficiently, and I think it caught the Rams by surprise for almost two full quarters before they could kind of figure, you know, regain their bearings and figure out how are we going to counter this, And that's when the chess match really began.

00:04:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, And one of those finding their bearings was a simple toss play from Stafford to Blake Korn. It gets credited as a Stafford fumble, but Blake got caught looking for his future instead of the football and it results in a turnover that the forty nine ers are able to enjoy that CMC touchdown off. So at that point fourteen nothing again, Mac Jones is dealing and Kendrick Bourne catches a couple of drives on the draft on catch a couple of balls on the drive, and then there's a third down where he just puts one on the turf and there's life for the Rams. They come back and score on a drive where Stafford uses Ferguson on third down hits Kyen Williams for a thirteen yard scorer. From that point on, so like, we have a really solid middle of the football game for both teams.

00:05:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was when I feel like, like you said, new life and really an opportunity for them to get back into this game. What's funny too, is there was another sequence where the Niners had a chance to potentially go up twenty one to seven, and instead they get they are limited to a seventeen to seven lead, and then they actually they kick a field but they could have been on twenty four to seven. They kick a fiel able to make it twenty to seven, and that was like one of those shifting points where you're like, they get in the end zone here, this game m'd be over and instead the Rams blow up and stop them. But it was those those flash points within this game where it just like the tides just rise and fell rose and fell throughout this game. And yeah, it's it's interesting because another thing that developed throughout this game that I thought really changed the flow of it was the trench play.

00:05:45
Speaker 2: I know that's like my thing, right, but early on, early.

00:05:49
Speaker 1: On, the Niners are destroying the Rams in the trenches. They're getting great searge, they're doing whatever they want. They can't get pressure on Mac Jones, They're allowing him to get those balls out quickly. And then by the second half, the Rams wise, we have to change the way that we're approaching this game. We have to move Jared Verse into the A gap. We have to mug him in the A gap and just confuse what Max Jones is looking at. And that's another point in the game in which it really changed. But yeah, the Rams needed that first entry back into this game for it to even be an entertaining contest.

00:06:20
Speaker 5: Yeah, there was.

00:06:21
Speaker 4: As we get into the second half, Nate Landman, great night for him, but we love calling him. Land Man makes great play on a third down where the forty nine Ers ultimately had a fourth and one deep in their own territory. Kyl Shanahank goes for it, but then they get a little farther down the field, Landman makes that play and then the ensuing drive is all Stafford to Davonte. This is that connection where you know, there may have been some boget illegal screens out there to kind of free up Davante, you know, at this point the second half. But you really saw that connection really start to get going in the middle part of the second half, and it leads to a touchdown, but Cardy comes out the extra points no good, and we all put a pin in that one because it just felt like at that point that would have given the Rams a one point lead, like this is going to come back and absolutely brutalized lossing.

00:07:18
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:07:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Rams were kind of peeking around the curtain with their failure in the detailed department. There would be There was a sequence earlier in the game where they had three drops in a row that killed one of their drives. Quorum dropped one of the flats, Kyra Williams dropped one that would have been a first down. They were missing tackles pretty consistently. They're just the little detailed things they were.

00:07:37
Speaker 2: Not doing well.

00:07:38
Speaker 1: And then the ugly head rears itself again and that is their field goal. Unit has not been consistent when it comes to blocking this season. That was their fourth kick block this season. We know what happened in Philly with a two kicksblock. They had one blocked against the Titans. This one keeps it a tie game and makes us all realize, oh, we're in for one now instead of a one point advantage, we are firmly in the potential overtime zone, which is exactly what we ended up getting.

00:08:03
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was the details. It was the details.

00:08:04
Speaker 1: And also on that drive, I love the way that this game unfolded because for most of the night the Niners are playing zone and for some reason they go to man in that drive and Adams just completely torches them. It's just Stafford and Adams like he's running great routes, he's separating from a rookie corner. He's we've got a dime from Stafford over the mill in between two defenders to Adams who broke free from another defender. And I think even Herbstreet mentioned on the collees. Now they're suddenly running in and it's killing them, and I don't think they did it very long. In fact, according to next Gen, they only ran man coverage on ten total defensive plays, and I can see why, but it was a great opportunity for the Rams to get back in the game and for Sean mcvagh to quickly identify that and work in tandem with this quarterback to get DeVante Adams open, which opened up the rest of their offense because for a while too, Pukanakool was not a major factor in this game. And then all kind of changed in the second half.

00:08:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, especially in the second half over on the Rams defensive side of the ball on Bradon Fisk had a good shot on mac Jones in the the red zone on we ultimately was the scoring drop for the forty nine ers. Young as well as Turner all got hits on mac Jones that started to really accumulate on the quarterback.

00:09:11
Speaker 5: At one point I wondered if his knee.

00:09:12
Speaker 4: Brace shook had actually stabbed him in the calf, and that's what was what he was reacting to, as you know, a burst lands on top of him. And so the fourth the Brams were able to get a stop, so a tie, tie game eight minutes to go in the third quarter, a crucial third and one. And it's back to those details. We were talking about shook because Davante and Stafford are on different pages on an option route and they wind up punting the ball away. And I wonder how you felt about that play call, because I mean, it's two vets, two guys who maybe going to Canton. You just you take that l when you can get a chick.

00:09:48
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:09:48
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you brought this up, because that was the stretch in the game in which I felt Sean McVay, like many Madden players, for example, fell in love with the past too much. He went away from the run way too heavy in that stretch of time. And I think it was because it worked so well in the previous drive that they're like, let's just keep riding the hot hand. And there was a pass I think on that drive early in that sequence where he misses downfield where you're like, why are you taking a shot fifteen yards down the field when it's first and ten. I guess I understand that if you're you know, if the passing game is heating up, but second and third down, they're still throwing. They're still throwing, they're still throwing, and they just became unbalanced, and I think that really pained them in that stretch and allowed because it was a back and forth they they punned away pretty quickly.

00:10:26
Speaker 2: The Niners punted it away pretty quickly.

00:10:28
Speaker 1: There was a bit of a stalemate between the two sides where I felt they both kind of got out of their comfort zone, out of their rhythm and had to reset, And luckily they did because it set up for a great final quarter.

00:10:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, that final quarter after Stafford and DeVante can't link up. It's a spectacular punt so far as going nuts there at the two yard line. And then we get the mac Jones drive. Shook, the absolute mac Jones drive, which includes dump offs to see them see a couple of balls to Kendrick Bourne and Eddip you know, making a kick.

00:10:56
Speaker 5: His eyes getting big as saucers.

00:10:58
Speaker 4: He's talking to everybody saying, just doing what Eddie Pinero does at this point, but the Rams get the ball, they have an opportunity and Alfred Collins, the rookie out of Texas, makes the play of the game on Kira Williams at the gold line. Stafford takes gives kyon Williams and he.

00:11:19
Speaker 5: Is he fumbled it. The Niners are.

00:11:23
Speaker 4: Saying they got it.

00:11:25
Speaker 3: The play was shy in the line to gain wait for a signal.

00:11:28
Speaker 4: They're unpiling everybody at the one.

00:11:30
Speaker 1: The forty nine ers come out of there, Alfred Collins has the football.

00:11:42
Speaker 4: And so that it with so many of these fumble situations, you know, you get the shot of Kira Williams getting brutalized over just doing it to himself on the sideline's beside himself. I'm of the mindset when al Collins not only hits the ball there, he hits the ball and follow through he essentially bunch a Kyra Williams in the face. That was just a great defensive play where it's not like Kyra Williams wasn't protecting the football. It's just a big man got a great shot on the ball in a big moment and also recovered it.

00:12:12
Speaker 5: Just a huge play by the room.

00:12:14
Speaker 1: We all need to take a moment to thank Charles Peanut Tillman for his impact on the game. He's been retired for a while now, but it is evident in the way guys tackle every Sunday in every game, and this is the third time I can think of a running back getting the ball punched out in almost the exact same way on the goal line.

00:12:30
Speaker 2: In the last two weeks.

00:12:31
Speaker 1: It happened to Remindra Stevenson against the Steelers in Week three, it happened to Braylen Allen against the Dolphins on Monday Night at the end of Week four. And now we go into Week five and you see it in the first game of that week, and it's a crucial play because if he scores there, I think that game is largely over unless the Niners can find a way to get down the field, which I don't think they were going to be able to. And this is just an example of how these Niners, all these injuries that that they've suffered, like they are a walking, traveling mass unit, and yet somehow guys step up and make plays in clutch situations like that. It is an absolutely phenomenal tackle, one of the best plays you're ever going to see from an interior defensive lineman with the game on the line, coming in from behind and knocking out and then also recovering it. And I think it was so shocking in the moment, but it was also at the end of a sequence in which the Rams had all the momentum behind them. They were cruising down the field, Stafford's hitting atoms, He's hitting Puka Hirom Williams bounce as a run that was supposed to go left to the right side for a twenty yard game, they looked destined for the end zone.

00:13:31
Speaker 2: The Niners could not stop them.

00:13:32
Speaker 1: And with three feet between the Rams and the lead and possibly a win, the Niners find a way to respond and keep this thing in a close game.

00:13:40
Speaker 4: There was daylight between Karen Williams and the end zone. If Collins does not get that ball out, yeah, because Collins not only got the ball back, but he prevented the touchdown because Williams was going in. And you know, those who believe in the MO might ask why it did not provide the Rams with a touchdown, because you have to make the plays. You have to do the things the preceding plays can't make the subsequent play for you. In Alfred Collins understood that, understands that, and yeah, shout out to Charles P. Nutt Tillman, who recently left cash Bettel's FBI not necessarily aligning with its vision for law enforcement. And so at that point, the forty nine ers get the ball back. Yeah, congratulations. The problem is the Rams had all three of their timeouts, and Kyle Shanahan with it, a quarterback who has struggled to get on and off the field, shook at that point, Alex to be very conservative. I also wonder how you feel about that series from the forty nine ers where they essentially ran about twelve seconds off of the clock and got Stafford the ball back around midfield.

00:14:45
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, the entire passing game, the whole evening was predicated on getting the ball out quickly. But when you're backed up against you're on goalpost, you're on the one yard line. The Rams have no reason to respect the deep shot when they know that you have no room to navigate in the pocket and find something deep. So they're going to play press coverage, they're going to create tight passing windows. And it wasn't until that third down where they got the ball out and got closer to well, actually it was a prior drive. But like these they were in this situation a couple of times because of great puns and then the great punt, then the turnover, and it wasn't util the third down after the great punt that they were able to throw the ball toward the sticks. And in that situation, Why would I trust Mac Jones to do anything but hand the ball off three times and at least make them burn their timeouts, punt the ball down there, give them.

00:15:26
Speaker 2: You know, sixty yards or so to work toward to get into field goal range.

00:15:31
Speaker 1: You know that their field goal unit's not good, and exhaust them of their timeouts so that they at least have to move up tempo and feel the pressure of having to go no huddle and that sort of situation.

00:15:39
Speaker 2: It made sense.

00:15:40
Speaker 1: It's a tough situation to be in, but at that point you're at risk management and with a three point lead clinging to it on the road, even though it was kind of a home environment, it made the most sense to me, even if it was definitely not aggressive.

00:15:51
Speaker 4: And so the Rams get the ball back, there's a Cardi field goal, we go into overtime. In overtime Mac and CMC, there's another completion to Kendrick Bourne. Eddiep puts one through and we're thinking, okay, Stafford and the Rams get the ball back. They have an opportunity to go and score, and then we get the sequence that ultimately led to the game deciding play shook. There was a we discussed before we got going here. Immediately after the game, there's a third in short, they get not all of the yards, it's a fourth and one. Ultimately for the game, Sean McVay is calling the play immediate as soon as the receiver catches the ball short of the line of the game to play, calls immediately plays in motion. Kyle Shanahan calls time out, they go to a different play. What do you think took place there between Sean Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan and that timeout, because I think that time out by the one in the game.

00:16:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think did too.

00:16:54
Speaker 1: And I think your theory that we discussed before is absolutely right that they were going to run the play that they were in repeatedly to Cooper cuppin the Super Bowl, and they have a guy to do that. They have two guys that they can team up to make that happen again in DeVonta Adams and Puku and Akula, And I think they got the look that they wanted and Kyle knew again this goes back to being from the same coaching tree, having so much experience coaching against each other, he knew exactly what was coming and he was going to do everything within his power burn that last time out to stop it from happening right before his eyes, And yeah, I agree, because that time out forced Sean to think twice to come out and try to draw them off side, and.

00:17:28
Speaker 2: That didn't work.

00:17:29
Speaker 1: And at that point it gets weird because you're like, well, I've already committed to going forward on fourth and one. I've already taken the confidence out of my kicker's brain that I think that he can kick it, even though it was a makeable field goal. You're almost overly committed to it, and you have to do it now. You've already kind of sealed your own faith. The call itself on fourth and short was very regrettable, and that doesn't even come down to the results. It comes down to the fact that you did not win the trench battle for most of the night, save for when you had some improvisation on the part of your running back and the right side of their line gets completely caved in by Mike gl William and kyram Winims.

00:18:01
Speaker 2: As soon as I saw it from the snap.

00:18:02
Speaker 1: The prime vision camera is directly over the play and you can see the right side line just.

00:18:06
Speaker 2: Get caved in.

00:18:07
Speaker 1: And I'm like, as soon as the ball snapped and they handed off, I've just been going nowhere, not gonna get it.

00:18:12
Speaker 2: I've never had a chance.

00:18:13
Speaker 1: And I think that that was when Kyle and Sean caught themselves in a staring match. Neither refused to blink, and one of them paid the price for it.

00:18:22
Speaker 4: And these two have had some great ones. They've gone back and forth, and it reminds me last year Shook when there was a hurt Rams team they got an out of nowhere win against the forty nine ers. The roles have reversed. Yeah, forty just got their revenge and they got to win. And the Rams will, you know, have a chance to go on the road and take on a hurt Ravens team, which you know a lot of folks dealing with injuries right now on October twelfth, and the forty nine ers are going to be on the road to take on the Buccaneers on that same day. The extra rests needed after this one because they got the bonus football on Thursday night with with Al and Kirk on the call and you know Sam on the call for those of US ball knowers who are also watching on Prime Vision, which is I mean Securior.

00:19:12
Speaker 5: Yeah. Before we say goodbye, you guys got to watch the prime vision version of the broadcast.

00:19:17
Speaker 4: It's it's everything we wanted as children, and we get it.

00:19:22
Speaker 5: We get it once.

00:19:23
Speaker 1: I could, I could probably do without some of the overlays following the players at certain certain instances, just because it like complicates the picture a little bit. But everything else is just You can see how defensive, how decent defenses roll their shells and their coverages. The show quarters they roll it to three. You see a safety come down and try to play the robber. You can see stunts. You can see how prestat motion diagnoses man and how they instantly have guys open the rams are the forty nine ers. Sam comes on and starts talking about how down here the forty nine ers like to run condensed sets and target outside the numbers, and they instantly go to bourn for a completion that sets them up for a first down and an opportunity to get some points on the board.

00:19:59
Speaker 2: And I'm like, they, this is beautiful when it happens, because he's right.

00:20:02
Speaker 1: He goes back to it again and it doesn't quite work out for them, but I'm like this is the marriage of analytics and advanced metrics, scouting and watching it all play out in real time, and I think it's such an informative tool. This game itself is so worth watching, going back and watching. If you have NFL Plus, watch the Prime Vision replay of it, because it will help you learn so much about the chess match that we just watched, so much more than the traditional broadcast gives you. And I think it's just a great example of how two coaches can go back and forth in a game and you can watch it all unfold before your eyes. And it also makes you realize how fast these games go, because when you're watching on TV, you're seeing shots of the sideline shots, the coach, shots of fans, and then they're breaking the huddle.

00:20:41
Speaker 2: That's not really happening.

00:20:42
Speaker 1: When you're watching Prime Vision and you realize, oh my god, this play clock those thirty seconds is for real between these two guys. And I want to make one last note because the story at halftime was all about Mac Jones, and an essential reason why the Niners won this game is because of the play of Mac Jones. It's also because of how Kyle Shanahan schemed up to get Matt comfortable, but I don't think it happens if he doesn't have his old Patriots teammate Kendrick Bourne out there, because they hooked up for ten catches for one hundred and forty two yards and he was an absolutely vital part of this offense. And it just goes to show that even when you're without your top two, top three receivers, who want to count Brandon Ayuk, that guy you picked up because the Patriots let go can play a huge role in your offense.

00:21:23
Speaker 2: And a lot of it has to do with familiarity in a big spot.

00:21:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, a key part because I remember there was the game before Kendrick Bourne signed and they asked Kyle in the post game, you know what's going on with Kendrick Bourne. It's like, we tried, and I'm assuming Kendrick was telling them, you know, yesterday's price was not the day's price, and ultimately they found the correct price that led to a win on Thursday Night Football. Thank you to Guy Hiberman and Tim Ryan of KSFO for the calls a spectacular win for the forty nine ers of the spectacular football game for us all to watch again on Prime Vision won't be going into work on Friday and talking about the forty nine.

00:22:02
Speaker 5: Ers wanting it more. You can talk about.

00:22:05
Speaker 6: Manipulating the middle of the field defender within his couch for Nick shuk playbook Forward wrapping up these games or Week five coming up on Sunday.

00:22:17
Speaker 5: Enjoying the rest of your Friday. See from the football team right