By Jourdan Rodrigue, Matt Barrows and Amos Morale III
For the first time this NFL season, a game finished with no touchdowns.
Los Angeles Rams kicker Joshua Karty made the difference with three fourth-quarter field goals as Los Angeles picked up a 12-6 win against the San Francisco 49ers on a rainy Thursday night at Levi’s Stadium.
Karty also hit a field goal in the first half as the Rams got a strong effort from their defense and running back Kyren Williams to pick up their seventh win in their last nine games.
Los Angeles held the 49ers to just 191 yards of offense as each side was slowed by the heavy rain in the first half. But even as the weather calmed in the second half, Brock Purdy and the 49ers offense failed to build momentum.
The loss drops San Francisco to 6-8, the 49ers’ fourth defeat in the past five games.
Anemic Rams offense did just enough
Five days after the Rams put up 44 points on the top-tier Buffalo Bills, Matthew Stafford and the offense were anemic in Santa Clara. Midway through the third quarter, the Rams’ longest offensive play of the day was a 12-yard screen, and they opened the game with five consecutive punts.
Even when the Rams got their screen game going into the third quarter, their red zone and goal-to-go issues popped up again. Two holds and a baffling Stafford keeper call (after which he came off the field wincing) after a first-and-10 from the San Francisco 11-yard line stalled out a promising drive with a field goal. A 51-yard bomb from Stafford to a wide-open Puka Nacua in the fourth quarter to the 49ers’ 16-yard line (that nearly doubled his passing yards to that point) also ended in a field goal.
Karty’s homecoming to the Santa Clara/Palo Alto area (he was a star kicker at Stanford) was impressive especially considering the elements. Karty hit the Rams’ first points of the game, a 48-yard field goal in the rain, in the first half. He added fields goals of 23, 27 and 29 yards in the second half.
As anemic as the Rams offense was Thursday night, Stafford didn’t throw an interception (he was nearly picked four times). In that, he has not thrown an interception in five consecutive games for the first time in his career. — Jourdan Rodrigue, Rams beat writer
Shorthanded Rams defense came through
The Rams were shorthanded at cornerback and entered the game third-worst in the NFL in EPA/pass play on deep throws, but veterans Darious Williams and Ahkello Witherspoon combined for a couple of crucial plays late in the fourth quarter.
Witherspoon, filling in for the injured Cobie Durant, broke up a deep pass intended for Ricky Pearsall. Williams intercepted Purdy with 5:14 to play, the Rams up 9-6, on a deep end zone shot intended for Jauan Jennings. — Jourdan Rodrigue, Rams beat writer
Deebo Samuel struggles mightily
The 49ers tried to get Deebo Samuel, coming off a series of quiet performances, involved in the game early. It didn’t work on a night in which offensive yards and points were difficult to find.
The 49ers’ so-called wideback, who carried the team into the playoffs in 2021, was targeted seven times in the passing game but came away with only three catches for 16 yards. His rushing performance was no better — two carries for 3 yards, which was below the modest 2.9-yard per-carry average with which he entered the game.
Far from sparking the offense, Samuel often was a hindrance. In the first quarter, he slammed into Isaac Guerendo, knocking the tailback to the ground. In the second quarter, Samuel’s false start penalty set the 49ers back 5 yards. In the third? He dropped a third-down pass that easily would have picked up a first down and might have been a touchdown. — Matt Barrows, 49ers beat writer
49ers sparked by Greenlaw return
The 49ers got a big spark in the first half from a pair of recent returnees on defense, Dre Greenlaw and Talanoa Hufanga. The problem is that both were on a pitch count Thursday and weren’t always on the field in the second half.
The 49ers were hoping for — and got — a big emotional lift from Greenlaw’s first appearance this season. He was the last player who was introduced in the pre-game ceremony, drew a huge roar from the crowd and played as if shot out of a cannon. Greenlaw finished the first half with eight tackles. But he was on the sideline in the second half with Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles filling in at the weakside linebacker spot.
Hufanga, who returned to the starting lineup Sunday against the Chicago Bears, was supposed to be on a pitch count. After Ji’Ayir Brown suffered a groin injury in the third quarter, however, Hufanga played the rest of the way at one safety spot with Tashaun Gipson Sr. manning the other. — Barrows
Required reading
- 49ers’ Jauan Jennings, the king of grimy play, is excelling in more refined role
- ‘A little frustrated, for sure’: 49ers’ Deebo Samuel on his low-yield season
- NFL playoff picture after Week 14: Bucs reclaim NFC South lead; Eagles clinch playoff berth
(Photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
