SF 49ers receive high grades from impressive Week 6 win vs. LA Rams

The SF 49ers pulled off a much-needed 24-16 Week 6 win over the LA Rams, and Jimmy Garoppolo returned to his level of excellent play.

If there ever was a must-need win for the SF 49ers this early in the season, Week 6 proved to be it.

Following a disastrous and embarrassing home loss the previous Sunday to the Miami Dolphins, head coach Kyle Shanahan’s squad pulled off an impressive 24-16 Sunday Night Football win over the Los Angeles Rams, who were the first team to be favored over the Niners this season.

San Francisco getting off to a hot start helped, prompted by quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo bouncing back from being benched in Week 5. His three-touchdown effort over the first half was a pretty good indication he recovered enough from the high-ankle sprain that was plaguing him a week ago.

But Garoppolo’s efforts were only part of the whole story, as the SF 49ers run game, defense and special teams all contributed with key plays in the victory.

Some of those plays included limiting Rams All-Pro defensive tackle Aaron Donald, who wasn’t much of a factor despite arguably being the best defensive player in the league right now.

Give credit to the Niners offensive line against Donald despite this unit receiving plenty of criticism over the first five weeks of the season.

Despite suffering even more injuries, Shanahan managed to navigate what looked like a complete game plan, and San Francisco dominated the time-of-possession battle 37:55 to 22:05, which proved to be a major factor in the SF 49ers getting their first win at Levi’s Stadium this season.

Needless to say, the position grades for Shanahan’s squad deserve to be awfully good.

SF 49ers Offensive Grades

Time of possession wasn’t the only thing the SF 49ers dominated on Sunday night.

In total, the Niners managed 390 yards of offense while the Rams had 311, and most of those came late in the fourth quarter when Los Angeles was desperately trying to engineer a miraculous comeback.

First downs? Well, San Francisco had 24 to L.A.’s 17.

Still, Jimmy Garoppolo has to get a ton of credit for what worked on offense.

Garoppolo’s night was more than effective, seeing him go 23-of-33 for 268 yards with three touchdowns against zero interceptions and a 124.3 passer rating.

Part of the success was predicated on Garoppolo getting the ball out quickly, which he did.

Yet perhaps the best toss was Garoppolo’s 44-yard touchdown to tight end George Kittle on fourth down:

Garoppolo and the offense went flat a bit in the second half, and he wasn’t assisted by some key third-down drops.

Still, the talk of Jimmy G being a SF 49ers liability goes out the window for now.

So much of what the SF 49ers want to do on offense is built around the run game, and running back Raheem Mostert sure made his presence known over the first half. He finished the game with 65 yards on 17 carries, finding some key holes early to help set up play-action offense for Garoppolo.

The downer, however, was Mostert suffering an ankle injury mid-game and being forced to exit.

At least that opened things up for the undrafted rookie, JaMycal Hasty, who rushed for 37 yards on nine attempts and picked up some key rushes for first downs late in the game.

In total, San Francisco had 122 yards rushing.

Kittle is good at football. But you knew that already.

The first-team All-Pro finished with seven catches for a team-high 109 yards and the above-shown touchdown. Meanwhile, Garoppolo hit rookie wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk for his first touchdown reception at the NFL level.

That was one of only two receptions Aiyuk had, though, while fellow wideout Deebo Samuel managed six receptions for 66 yards.

The only aspect keeping the SF 49ers’ pass-catchers from getting an A-grade, however, was the drops, and even Kittle was guilty of one of those on third down. Fellow wide receiver Kendrick Bourne, who had two crucial grabs, also had a couple of drops.

Fortunately, none of them had a drastic impact on the game’s outcome.

If Garoppolo was receiving far too much criticism heading into Week 6, the offensive line was essentially just as guilty. And it sure looked as if Sunday night against Aaron Donald and the Rams would be disastrous.

Except no one told the Niners blockers.

Donald had one tackle and a quarterback hit. That was it.

Overall, the Rams recorded zero sacks on the night. Entering Week 6, they were tied with the Pittsburgh Steelers in this department with 20. Tack on that feat, along with San Francisco’s rushing attack getting going, and it’s crucial to note just how well the O-line performed against one of the more formidable defensive lines in the league.

SF 49ers Defensive Grades

The Niners stymied the Rams for the better part of three quarters, including holding Los Angeles to a 4-of-12 mark on third-down attempts and a 1-of-3 mark within the red zone.

The Rams own one of the league’s better third-down offenses and were particularly potent in the red zone coming into Week 6. San Francisco stopping those efforts to good effect was exceptional, and getting contributions from two cornerbacks, Jason Verrett and Emmanuel Moseley, was crucial, too.

The SF 49ers defensive line is never going to be as potent this year without EDGEs Nick Bosa and Dee Ford, yet there were some positive moments from this unit despite it not registering a sack on Rams quarterback Jared Goff.

Rookie defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw, despite being flagged for two penalties, managed to swat down a Goff pass, while EDGE Kerry Hyder got himself another quarterback hit.

A C-plus grade might seem a bit harsh, although the D-line essentially did as good a job as it could be expected to do against a top offense.

Linebacker Fred Warner is elite. Seven combined tackles from Warner don’t tell the entire story, as he was regularly converging sideline to sideline making key tackles and limiting Los Angeles’ rushing attack early for two-plus quarters.

True, the Rams finished the game with 113 rush yards and averaged 5.9 yards per carry. But most of those totals came in the second half when the Niners offense was struggling to stay on the field, tiring out the defense.

Still, Warner’s playmaking efforts were crucial, and even second-year linebacker Dre Greenlaw delivered with some key red-zone plays, too.

One of those set things up nicely for Verrett.

Verrett has been exceptional for San Francisco’s defense this season, and he sure made his presence known Sunday night. He had two pass breakups, and his fourth-down red-zone interception off Goff helped ensure the Niners would preserve a two-possession game heading into the fourth quarter:

Moseley was flagged for two penalties, one of them being declined. Yet he was a major factor, too, tying with Greenlaw with seven tackles and also adding three passes broken up.

No, this wasn’t a secondary consisting of corners like Brian Allen and Dontae Johnson. Verrett and Moseley have to make San Francisco fans feel much better about the secondary.

SF 49ers Special Teams, Coaching Grades

Kyle Shanahan’s game management for Jimmy Garoppolo was crucial, especially in the first half. Getting the Niners out to a large lead early was good, too, and some of the creativity on display helped show why the SF 49ers are still dangerous to the rest of the NFC West.

But Shanahan couldn’t have come up with some of the plays on special teams, which were equally as crucial.

San Francisco needed some sparks to happen in the third phase of the game, and it got them.

In the first half, EDGE Dion Jordan blocked a Rams extra-point attempt to keep Los Angeles at six points. The Rams trying to make it a one-score game was arguably influenced by that, considering their late touchdown made it an eight-point game and would have put more pressure on Goff to perform under pressure.

Meanwhile, kicker Robbie Gould hit his lone field-goal try to ensure that eight-point lead after L.A.’s final score.

Unlike Week 5, where both Shanahan and defensive coordinator Robert Saleh seemed completely out of sorts on all phases, the SF 49ers managed to engineer an effective game plan over the majority of all four quarters.

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Getting out to a solid lead was part of that equation, as Shanahan’s offense was up to a 21-6 lead by halftime. And when the offense went stale in the second half, Saleh’s makeshift defense did its job to frustrate whatever Los Angeles was trying to do to get back in the game.

True, the Rams also got in their own way multiple times, notably with Goff missing receivers, dropped passes and clear disconnect within the pass game.

But the good point was seeing San Francisco keep up the defensive momentum here.

Some of the SF 49ers’ own offensive woes in the second half fall on Shanahan’s shoulders, particularly struggling to adjust when Raheem Mostert went down with an injury. Seven penalties for 63 yards also won’t work too well against other top-tier teams when they’re firing on all cylinders either, although Shanahan and Co. were able to overcome their own yellow-flag mistakes well enough.

Most importantly, however, Shanahan managed to get his team back in shape after a disappointing loss and pulled off one of the most important wins of the season thus far.