The 49ers don’t need anybody to tell them they should handle the Dolphins in Week 2. San Francisco is coming off a statement win over the Super Bowl favorites, while Miami was beaten comfortably by the Las Vegas Raiders in its opener and is already being talked about in the race for the first overall pick.
Even so, this one carries a little more intrigue than the spread suggests. The 49ers are also dealing with the aftereffects of their trip back from Australia, which is enough to make this look like a possible trap game if they’re not locked in.
Kyle Shanahan and his staff probably won’t spend much time hammering that point home, though. If San Francisco shows up anywhere near the level it reached in Melbourne, the matchup gives its defense a real chance to build on one of the most encouraging developments from Week 1: the pass rush.
That was the surprise against the Los Angeles Rams. The 49ers came away with a 27-7 win and didn’t record a sack of Matthew Stafford, but the pressure was there. San Francisco finished with a 41 percent pressure rate, its best single-game mark all season in 2025.
That matters here because Miami’s protection looked shaky right out of the gate. In the Dolphins’ loss to the Raiders, the line allowed five sacks and Malik Willis was pressured 17 times in a rough first outing for the former Green Bay Packers quarterback.
Las Vegas didn’t just win with one dominant edge presence, either. Maxx Crosby handled the headline work with two sacks, but all three of the Raiders’ top edge rushers were able to consistently get into the backfield.
Crosby posted an average separation from the quarterback of 3.58 yards on pass-rushing plays, while Kwity Paye came in at 3.84 and Malcolm Koonce at 3.9. All three were well below the league average of 4.58 yards, according to NextGen Stats.
That’s the part of the film that should jump out to Nick Bosa and the rest of San Francisco’s front. Miami just showed that its offensive line can be pushed around by a good pass rush, and the 49ers have the kind of defensive line that can make life miserable if the pocket starts collapsing early.
The concerns about San Francisco’s depth on the interior and off the edge haven’t disappeared after one game. The Rams performance alone won’t erase them, and a strong showing against Miami won’t settle the issue, either. But if the 49ers can shake off the travel and take advantage of this matchup, they have a clear chance to turn an encouraging Week 1 into something bigger.
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The Titans 23-10 loss to the Jets did more than start the season on the wrong foot. Tennessees defense had trouble handling key offensive players, and Saleh later acknowledged how difficult the jump can be from calling a defense to running an entire team. For a coach trying to establish himself in a second head-coaching stop, the early concern is less about one bad result than whether the bigger transition will make fixing problems even harder. [Read more 🡒]
Bills Already Look Smarter For One Costly Offseason Gamble
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For the 49ers, Samuels debut mattered because this was never just about adding another familiar name to the receiver room, but about whether the move would actually hold up once the games counted. His early production helped San Francisco in Week 1, yet it also sharpened the larger conversation around how these offseason bets are being judged almost immediately, especially when a single game can make one front office look prescient and another look exposed before September is even underway. [Read more 🡒]