The San Francisco 49ers' offense looked absolutely fantastic on Sunday in an easy 37-24 win over the Tennessee Titans this past Sunday afternoon at Levi's Stadium, putting points on the board on its first five possessions for the first time since the 2021 campaign.
Brock Purdy put forth his best performance of the season to date, earning a campaign-best 140.3 passer rating after completing a season-high 76.7 percent of his passes for 295 yards with three touchdowns and zero interceptions. He also contributed 44 yards to a Niners rushing attack that surpassed the century mark for just the second time in five games with 138 yards. Christian McCaffrey naturally led the team in that regard, running for 79 yards and a touchdown.
The San Francisco defense, on the other hand, wasn't quite as sharp as Robert Saleh would like, as his unit gave up 306 total yards to a Tennessee squad that had previously only hit the 300-yard mark twice coming into the matchup.
Furthermore, the Niners surrendered 136 rushing yards to the Titans, who had only hit the century mark three times in that regard and currently rank 30th in the NFL in rushing at 88.6 yards per game.
That's certainly not what San Francisco wants to see when the next game on the schedule is a Monday Night Football matchup with the Indianapolis Colts, which obviously means a matchup with the league's leading rusher, Jonathan Taylor.
49ers could struggle something fierce to contain Jonathan Taylor on Monday night
Heading into this crucial Week 16 contest, the Niners aren't anywhere close to being the worst team against the run, but they're certainly not the best either, ranking 12th by allowing 106.1 yards per game.
But let's run this number another way. In the six games in which Fred Warner appeared, the 49ers surrendered just 82.2 yards on the ground per game. But in the eight games since his season-ending fractured and dislocated right ankle injury, they've allowed 115.8 per contest.
So, things have obviously taken a turn in the absence of the four-time All-Pro.
And that's going to be a problem against the Colts, who rank sixth in the NFL in rushing at 128.5 rushing yards per game, with the vast majority of that coming from Taylor, who has averaged 103.1 ground yards per contest and also leads the league with 16 rushing scores.
The two-time Pro Bowler is also the fifth-ranked running back in terms of efficiency, as he's averaging 5.3 yards per carry, which is also a problem, as what we failed to mention above is that the Niners gave up those 136 yards to the Titans on just 20 carries, which equates to 6.8 yards per attempt. And there was one run in there that went for minus-7 yards.
Breaking things down even further, San Francisco gave up 7.4 yards per carry to the Titans' lead back, Tony Pollard, who went for 104 yards on just 14 attempts. Taylor runs the ball nearly 20 times per game for Indianapolis, so if the Niners give up that same yardage on Monday, they're in trouble.
And one could easily assume that Taylor will see far more than 20 carries. With all due respect to 44-year-old Philip Rivers, who looked as good as anyone could have expected in his first game in nearly five years, the Colts, who are battling for a playoff spot, likely won't be relying on the veteran to carry them to victory.
The good news for the 49ers is that Taylor hasn't hit the 100-yard mark since his ridiculous 244-yard outburst against the Atlanta Falcons back in Week 10. He's also only scored one touchdown since then.
But the bad news could end up being that he's due for a monster outing, and it may just come at San Francisco's expense.