The San Francisco 49ers are too talented a team to play unenjoyable football.
Over the first half of the season, a cocktail of poor execution and injuries sucked the life out of this team. Watching the offense was an arduous task, an exercise in entertainment malfeasance.
Heading into Sunday, there were enough reasons to rationally fear that they’d leave fans with another hollow feeling.
No Deebo Samuel? Against the Rams?
That’s before mentioning the absences of Jauan Jennings, Kyle Juszczyk, Arik Armstead, Dre Greenlaw, Jason Verrett, and players on injured reserve.
The defense was coming off its worst game of the season, and two-straight woeful performances. The offense was averaging 20.7 points per game.
Even the first half of Sunday’s contest had moments when it felt like this could be another exhausting repeat of past under-performances.
The Rams converted six-straight third-down conversions before the defense got them off the field, then kept them off the field. Jimmy Garoppolo tried to get picked off by Jalen Ramsey twice by the early third quarter. It was uneasy until the fourth.
Christian McCaffrey said f**k all that. Football is fun. Football is entertaining. Football is life. Literally.
After the game, he and Garoppolo copied cadences. When asked about the other, they both offered: “He’s a football player.”
It’s a fact and football platitude that is also some of the highest praise a teammate can give to another.
So much of what McCaffrey did on Sunday was that basic. It was backyard football.
It’s what makes Kyle Shanahan’s offense legitimately delightful to watch when it’s clicking. His creativity requires complexity to execute, but is founded in simplicity.
Despite having a quarterback with limitations, Shanahan has surrounded him with upper echelon skill players, and leans on Garoppolo’s strengths, which are delivering the ball on time, and often in tight, short windows. Garoppolo, for his part, was excellent in the second half.
The philosophy is simple: put the ball in the hands of your best players in space, as quickly as possible, and good things will usually happen.
What happened Sunday was that McCaffrey broke the Rams down with an all-around performance the likes of which we’ve seen just thrice since the AFL-NFL merger.
Only 10 players before him have passed for, rushed for and caught a touchdown in a single game. His 183 yards from scrimmage rank third amongst those players.
The void left behind by Deebo Samuel was not just a strategic one. It was an ethos, an identity of on-the-fly playmaking that provides confidence that a breakout play will come. Samuel is an innovator in yards after touch. He carried the 49ers to and through the playoffs last year.
McCaffrey, arguably the league’s most dynamic and well-rounded back, re-established that dynamism with Samuel on the sidelines. He, like Samuel, has a gravity to him. He offers an inimitable spark that turns a short gain into a first down, a chunk gain into a touchdown, nothing into something.
It wasn’t just his touchdowns, the “dot” — as George Kittle described it — throw to Brandon Aiyuk, or the off-schedule, leaping reception, or the rush which followed an even more impressive rush down to the 1-yard line. Every single carry felt like he could break loose.
There were seemingly a half-dozen times when he made a cut, turned a would-be short play into a massive gain. He saved the first touchdown drive with an on-the-dime juke to convert a 3rd-and-7.
You could feel the 49ers-heavy crowd’s collective eyes widen and catch people rising from their seats in anticipation when he found an edge.
That’s electricity. And as esoteric as that is, it matters. He had a gravitational pull to his performance, using Newton’s third law like a vacuum, stealing energy from the Rams in their home stadium and feeding it to the 49ers.
Nick Bosa said you could feel the Rams give up in a way he was unaccustomed to. As the offense bullied Los Angeles in the second half, scoring three-straight touchdowns off three-straight Rams punts, their opponents’ belief evaporated.
“I did [feel them give up], yeah,” Bosa said. “Our offense was rolling. Got us a 10 point lead. Usually with them — I mean, like last year when they came back, they’re going after us. But after I think the sack, it was pretty much over.”
To be clear, it was the defense finally getting the Rams off the field that turned the tide. But there have been countless occasions when the offense failed to capitalize on those efforts this season.
Their response, this time, was an 11-play, 88-yard touchdown drive. But it was almost all for naught. Danny Gray and Ray-Ray McCloud had miscommunications on first and second down which affected the play and timing. Wide receivers coach Leonard Hankerson nearly lost his headset and his mind on the sideline in a conniption of frustration at a crucial moment.
It threatened to ruin a nearly immaculate drive up to that point.
But McCaffrey, who Garoppolo surmised was the fifth read in his progression — intimating he wasn’t even supposed to be an option — broke free, got behind Nick Scott, and the veteran found him with a hole shot.
Garoppolo said after the 49ers’ drubbing of the Seattle Seahawks in Week 2 — his return to action — that he loves playing that brand of off-the-cuff football. Read and react, don’t just rely on timing. That’s often easier said than done.
There is an outrageous level of complexity required to play in the NFL and run a successful team. There’s memorization, on-the-fly strategic adjustments, and so many other factors that affect an outcome. McCaffrey had to soak up as much of the offense as he could in a nine-day timeframe.
But it’s talent, in a singular moment, that so often alters results. That’s what makes this game so addictive to watch: the unexpected moments of athleticism and creativity.
When the 49ers traded for McCaffrey, it offered a healthy reminder that the NFL is an entertainment product The 49ers had strategic reasons for bringing him in, and he’s obviously an excellent fit.
But strip all that away.
There is a pervasive tone of seriousness which sometimes surrounds football. Fans invest heaps in emotional stock in their teams, and there is a legitimate pain in losing.
But why do we watch games in the first place? To be entertained. To forget about the seriousness of life outside of these spectacles.
McCaffrey is fun as hell to watch. He’s a one-of-one player who brings you back to the early memories of why you fell in love with the sport.
Sometimes, it’s as simple as a really cool player doing really cool things. He got the 49ers juiced when he arrived, and made good on that feeling this week.
There was a noticeable shift in tenor in the postgame presser. Kyle Shanahan bounced in with a smile and a sense of humor, something that used to be a frequent part of his pressers.
“Sorry guys, I couldn’t find you,” he said to reporters after arriving a bit late. “No injuries to report. It’s awkward, but I don’t have any. It’s awesome.”
There was a glaring relief in his face, and in the smiles plastered to the likes of Fred Warner, Kittle, Garoppolo and McCaffrey. Aware of the fact they’d played the Rams for the last time this season, Nick Bosa talked some trash, too.
“I was kind of surprised when they gave up a little early,” Bosa said. “I think there was maybe six or seven minutes left and they ran the ball on third down. I was hoping for some more pass rushes there. But I guess they didn’t have confidence in coming back.”
San Francisco crushed their rivals for the second time this season. Their 4-4 record is decidedly good enough because they are 3-0 in the NFC West, with a tiebreaker that will require the Rams to finish with a better record than them to steal the division.
While the Seattle Seahawks have the division lead, the 49ers are the clear favorites, at this point, to win it. They’ve got their swagger back, and that’s owed to McCaffrey.