49ers studs and duds from strong Week 8 victory vs. Rams

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Nick Scott, Los Angeles Rams, Ray-Ray McCloud, San Francisco 49ers

Ray-Ray McCloud, San Francisco 49ers (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images) /

Dud: Ray-Ray McCloud

Just a quick caveat to this: This isn’t a criticism of Ray-Ray McCloud’s work as a return specialist in this game. He had quite a decent day doing that, so we’ll skip over that.

But to be honest, this was McCloud’s chance to integrate himself more into San Francisco’s offense, given he was starting at receiver and the 49ers, in hindsight, had a good day on offense.

However, not to put too fine a point on it, McCloud did not have a good day as a receiver. He had only one catch for 11 yards and didn’t find the ball on a rare Jimmy Garoppolo deep shot.

The ball was by no means perfectly thrown, but if McCloud had gotten himself toward the ball a lot better instead of waiting for it to go to him, he could have had a good shot of making the catch or at least drawing an interference flag on the Rams defense.

There’s a lot to like about McCloud’s work as a return specialist, and he has flashed the odd bit of potential on offense, but he missed a golden chance to make the role of the third wide receiver his own.