The San Francisco 49ers took care of business on Sunday with their 37-24 win over the Tennessee Titans at Levi's Stadium. In some ways, the matchup was closer than many would have anticipated, as the Titans stuck around and made a bit of a game of things up until later in the fourth quarter.
Truthfully, Tennessee never got closer than four points after Gunnar Helm's second quarter touchdown catch from Cam Ward made it 14-10. And in the end, the Niners defense did enough to hold the Titans off while the offense more than did its job.
The most troubling statistic on the day was something that was predicted on the preview episode of the Niner Noise Podcast for Sunday's game: Tennessee was able to run the ball rather successfully against this gutted San Francisco defense.
Overall, the Titans only ran the ball 20 times on Sunday, but they managed 136 yards, even with Chimere Dike's lone run taking 7 yards away from their total on the day.
The embodiment of San Francisco's troubles came from former Dallas Cowboys running back Tony Pollard, who is well on his way to his fourth successive 1,000-yard campaign after leaving Dallas for Nashville after the 2023 season.
The game situation didn't allow for Pollard to run the ball often; he had just 14 carries for the entire game, but the success rate is pretty clear: His 104 yards were good for 7.4 yards per carry. This marks Pollard's third game in a row with a per-carry average higher than 6, after 161 yards on 25 carries last week against the Cleveland Browns, and 60 yards on 10 totes against the Jacksonville Jaguars the week before.
For the Niners, the capitulation on defense has been increasing, with the loss of players like Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, Mykel Williams, and Tatum Bethune all impacting the unit's ability to stop the run.
The overall numbers for the season aren't great (106.1 per game, 4.3 yards per carry), but the last three games, which happen to correspond with Bethune's absence, are even worse. According to Kyle Madson of Niners Wire, over that period, San Francisco has allowed 343 rushing yards on a mere 64 carries, which is 5.4 yards per attempt:
Over their last three games the 49ers have allowed 343 rushing yards on 64 carries (5.4 yards per carry).
— Kyle, a Madson (@KyleAMadson) December 15, 2025
That is not going to get it done.
There's a case to be made that the yards themselves don't mean anything, and independently, that's a reasonable one to make. But this is a Titans team that was only averaging 17 points per game coming into Sunday's contest, so it's hard to say that their success in the running game didn't contribute to their outperforming their season average by a full touchdown.
That said, the Browns managed 4.5 yards per carry and scored just eight points, while Carolina was at 5.3 per attempt while scoring nine, so maybe there is something to the "empty yards" argument.
Either way, it is something to monitor moving forward. The 49ers offense, more than ever, must step up and continue to score a ton of points if the team has aspirations of a deep playoff run.