As the 49ers move on to the Miami Dolphins, Week 1 in Australia still offers a few big clues about where this team is headed. San Francisco’s 20-point win over the Los Angeles Rams was built on a handful of standout performances, and a few of them felt especially worth flagging before the 49ers head back stateside.
Start with Nick Bosa, because his night was a little different from the usual script. The headline coming in was the return of Bosa and Fred Warner, and Warner delivered the kind of performance fans expected.
Bosa, though, didn’t make his mark as a pass rusher. On 20 pass-rush snaps, he finished with just one pressure and one quarterback hit, part of a front four that didn’t leave much of a dent despite the defense generating 14 pressures on 28 Rams pass attempts.
Where Bosa really popped was against the run. The 49ers allowed 122 yards on 29 carries as a defense, but Bosa led the team with four run stops on 16 run-play snaps.
That accounted for a third of San Francisco’s run stops by himself. The pass rush should come as he continues working back from the season-ending injury he suffered in 2025, but if the run-stopping version of Bosa shows up regularly, that only gives the defense another layer.
The other eyebrow-raiser from Week 1 came in the backfield. For all the talk about Christian McCaffrey, Kaelon Black got the heavier workload, and it wasn’t empty volume.
Black carried 14 times for 65 yards, and his longest run was a 14-yarder on the 99-yard touchdown drive. That kind of usage is rare when McCaffrey is active.
The only other times a 49ers running back besides McCaffrey has had at least 14 carries in a game McCaffrey played were Elijah Mitchell’s 18 carries in Week 10 of 2022, Mitchell’s 17 carries in Week 17 of 2023, and now Black in Week 1 of 2026.
McCaffrey still looked like the lead back. On 10 carries, he ran for 68 yards and added five catches for 20 yards.
Black also chipped in as a receiver, catching one pass for five yards. Whether Black’s heavier workload was a one-off or something intentional is one of the more interesting things to watch in the next few weeks.
If there was one position group that set the tone, though, it was the corners. That group gets the nod for the week after holding down one of the league’s toughest receiver tandems in Puka Nacua and Davante Adams.
Deommodore Lenoir saw Nacua four times and gave up three catches for 28 yards, with the biggest hit being a 23-yard completion. On the other side, Renardo Green handled his work too.
Against Adams or Nacua, Green was targeted three times and allowed two catches to Adams for 23 yards. The biggest moment came when Matthew Stafford went at Nacua with Green in coverage, and Green came down with the first interception of his career.
Jack Jones and Upton Stout helped finish the job. The two were targeted seven times against Nacua and Adams and allowed only two receptions for eight yards. Jones also nearly came away with a pair of interceptions, but settled for two pass breakups.
That cornerback effort mattered in a big way, because Stafford finished with a 60 percent completion rate. In 2025, the Rams were 1-3 in the four games Stafford completed 60 percent or less of his passes. Against San Francisco, the 49ers’ coverage on the outside was a major reason the game got away from Los Angeles.
And then there was Brock Purdy’s third touchdown pass, which gets the nod for touchdown of the week. Purdy had three scoring throws, including a deep strike to Demarcus Robinson for 39 yards and a goal-line connection with Mike Evans. But the final one was the cleanest and the most memorable.
Purdy felt pressure, slid right, and then delivered a throw on the move that split a pair of Rams defenders and dropped perfectly into the open space of the end zone for Deebo Samuel. It was a sharp piece of quarterbacking, and it came with the right finish: Samuel’s first touchdown as a 49er since December 30, 2024. He ended the day with six catches for 48 yards, and that score felt like the perfect final note on his return to San Francisco.
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