The San Francisco 49ers landed in Melbourne, Australia, as three-point underdogs and walked out with a 27-7 win over the Los Angeles Rams on Thursday. The Rams had been getting treated like the league’s shiny new obsession, but that didn’t last long once the game started.
Stephen A. Smith summed up the postgame mood pretty cleanly when he was asked if the media had overhyped the Rams: “It appears so.”
And really, that was the story of the night. A lot of people spent the buildup talking themselves into Los Angeles as a kind of super team, only to watch San Francisco go out and handle business in a Week 1 game that didn’t even have the usual early-season messiness attached to it.
The 49ers looked good. Not “it’s-just-Week-1” good.
Just good.
That made for an easy time revisiting some of the louder preseason and pregame calls.
Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times was among the boldest, writing: “Rams will go undefeated on their way to winning another home Super Bowl title ”
He also described the schedule as a “Favorable schedule”. The path, as laid out, included the New York Giants at home, trips to the Denver Broncos and Philadelphia Eagles, and then the Buffalo Bills.
That’s the version of “favorable” that aged poorly almost immediately. Plaschke hadn’t responded on X as of this writing, aside from a recent LA Times column calling the game a “jet-lagged flop.”
Nick Wright also took a swing at San Francisco before kickoff, saying: “I think the Niners defense could be really bad”
That didn’t age much better. The 49ers’ defense came out sharp and disruptive, even without Mykel Williams.
San Francisco didn’t record a sack, but it did get eight quarterback hits, four of them credited to Osa Odighizuwa. Matthew Stafford was clearly bothered and ended up throwing a pick to Renardo Green.
For context, that eight-hit total was a major step forward from what the 49ers had in 2025, when they finished with 58 quarterback hits all season. The Rams, meanwhile, were blanked in the sack column and finished with just two quarterback hits. The article even noted that was the kind of output you’d expect from a 2025 49ers defense.
The offensive line questions around San Francisco didn’t exactly disappear, either. The Rams got to Brock Purdy twice, which was still a problem no matter where the calendar says the game falls. Purdy did throw an interception, but the 49ers were the more physical, more stable team throughout.
Then there was the roster-health debate. Louis Riddick had pointed out that San Francisco’s group looked good only if Trent Williams, Christian McCaffrey, Nick Bosa, and Fred Warner were fully healthy. He then described them as “aging guys-well, besides Fred Warner, obviously.”
That framing drew pushback because, if Warner doesn’t count as aging, the label gets a little strange for Bosa, who was taken a year later. The bigger point, though, was about health.
Riddick’s concern came from the contrast between the Rams being healthier in Week 1 and the 49ers still easing players like George Kittle back into the mix. That part has some merit, even if the gap between the teams wasn’t nearly as wide as it had been portrayed.
And then there was the loudest bad take of all: the one from the article’s own author, who had predicted the Rams would win and said the game would be competitive and come down to the wire.
That didn’t happen. Not really.
San Francisco controlled the game, and even the late Rams chances were more illusion than reality. The 49ers had already put the game out of reach by the time Matthew Stafford was benched with under two minutes left.
The notion that this was a tight one was hard to defend after the fact.
So yes, the game offered up a fresh batch of bad predictions to drag through the mud. Some came from national voices, some from local ones, and one came from the piece itself. But the scoreboard in Melbourne did the real talking.
In Other News...
Nick Bosa's 49ers Return Took A Strange Turn After The Rams Win
Nick Bosas return in the 49ers season opener against the Rams went about as well as San Francisco could have hoped on the field. Coming back from the torn ACL that cost him last season, Bosa was active, disruptive and around the ball, finishing with four tackles, two tackles for loss and a quarterback hit as the 49ers opened the year with their usual defensive edge.
Off the field, though, the aftermath took a weird turn. A social media post began circulating with a quote falsely attributed to Bosa about honoring Charlie Kirk, even though he never said it, adding his name to a growing list of NFL players caught up in fabricated online quotes. George Kittle and C.J. Stroud have been targeted by similar fakes before, a reminder of how quickly misinformation can shadow even a straightforward game night. [Read more 🡒]
Seahawks Injury Could Create A 49ers Reunion Niners Fans Will Hate
Sam Darnolds hip injury has nudged the Seahawks into a familiar place for a contender chasing stability at quarterback: suddenly needing insurance. Drew Lock handled most of the game after Darnold went down, but the possibility of Seattle looking for an experienced backup has already started to shift the conversation toward names that carry plenty of baggage in the NFC West.
For 49ers fans, the one drawing the most reaction is Jimmy Garoppolo, whose NFL future remains unclear amid retirement rumors and no confirmed decision on what comes next. Any talk of Garoppolo heading to Seattle would add another layer to an already uncomfortable regional rivalry, even if the idea is still just speculation and the Seahawks are only in the stage of weighing their options. [Read more 🡒]
Brock Purdy Had 49ers Fans Saying The Same Thing After That Video
Brock Purdys latest on-field reminder came in a steady, businesslike win over the Rams, the kind the 49ers have come to expect when their quarterback is in rhythm. He completed 25 of 34 passes for 205 yards, ran for 29 more, and threw three touchdowns in a 27-7 victory that looked every bit like a clean afternoon for a team trying to keep its footing in the NFC race.
Off the field, though, Purdy became the subject of a very different kind of buzz as an AI-generated video of him speaking provocatively spread across social media. The clip drew plenty of confusion from fans, and it quickly turned into one of those internet moments where the reaction nearly overtakes the actual football, even as Purdys real performance kept San Franciscos focus where it belonged. [Read more 🡒]