4 distinct advantages 49ers have over NFC West rival Rams

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San Francisco 49ers, Los Angeles Rams, SoFI Stadium

San Francisco 49ers fans at SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports /

49ers advantage No. 2: ‘Home-field’ advantage twice

OK, this advantage might be a little more objective, but it does have some sense to it.

For the football novice, teams within the division play each other twice during the regular season, one game at home and the other away, yet the 49ers do have an excellent fan presence in Southern California, where the same can’t exactly be said of the Rams up in the Bay Area.

Case in point, during the two games the Niners played at SoFI Stadium last year (one regular-season contest and then the NFC Championship game), it wasn’t hard to see just how red the stands were with fans pulling for San Francisco.

That Week 18 regular-season game, one in which the 49ers had to win to make the playoffs, prompted Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford’s wife, Kelly Stafford, to note the following:

"I’ve never seen so many of the opposing team’s fans at a game, and we came from Detroit. Matthew was on a silent count, Jimmy Garoppolo was not. … It was crazy. Again, I’ve never seen anything like that but it made it very hard for us, because I guess we weren’t expecting to be on silent count."

The Niners host Los Angeles on Monday Night Football in Week 4 at Levi’s Stadium, and that’ll be a perfect primetime vengeance game for the red and gold in front of a packed audience, while San Francisco visiting the Rams in Week 8 in a match that’ll probably feature just as many fans donning red as those wearing blue.