Kurtenbach: 49ers will roll over the Vikings.
The 49ers are healthy and should be much fresher than the beat-up Vikings
If Saturday’s 49ers-Vikings game were a middle- of-the-regular-season contest, we’d label it as a “schedule loss” for the Vikings and not think twice about it.
After all, the 49ers are rested after a bye week and appear to be as healthy as they possibly can be, putting only three players on their injury report Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Vikings are banged up after playing a physical and emotional playoff game in New Orleans on Sunday, and will now travel 2,000 miles (never underestimate the toll flying takes on the human body) to play in Levi’s Stadium on five days rest.
1. I expect this freshness disparity to show up in two places: the 49ers’ pass rush and the Vikings’ run game.
The 49ers’ pass rush was tired at the end of the season. Injuries depleted the team’s depth along the defensive line and the result of Nick Bosa, DeForest Buckner and Arik Armstead taking as many as 90% of a game’s snaps was a dramatic decrease in sacks.
But with or without speed-rusher Dee Ford (hamstring injury), the 49ers defensive line should have an extra spring in their step Saturday after the time off. Facing Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins, who is not a runner and holds on to the ball longer than any other quarterback in the NFL (3 seconds), and an underwhelming Minnesota offensive line is an added bonus.
San Francisco should be able to “get home” with a four-man rush early and often Saturday, allowing the defense — which has linchpin safety Jaquaski Tartt back in the fold — to mix up coverages on the back end. That’s a recipe for disaster for the Vikings, as we’ve seen in their two embarrassing losses to Green Bay this year.
We’ve seen this formula before: Cleveland and Green Bay showed up at Levi’s Stadium with offenses that boasted unathletic quarterbacks that hold on to the ball too long behind questionable offensive lines. The 49ers blew out both. 2. Both of those blownout teams, like the Vikings, had impressive run games and pass catchers, too. It didn’t matter.
There’s also reason to think that the short turnaround time for the Vikings will have a negative effect on Minnesota’s running game, which predicates everything that they do. The team’s true MVP candidate, running back Dalvin Cook, skipped Week 16 and 17 games to heal up before the postseason and the Vikings handed him the ball a season-high 28 times against the Saints last Sunday.
But his performance late in the year reflected his diminished burst. He averaged 3.3 yards per carry in his final five games of the season. Sunday against the Saints, Cook went for — get this — 3.3 yards per carry.
He’s a threat to catch the ball out of the backfield, yes, but he’s simply not the same player he was at the beginning of the season. A few days of rest isn’t going to fix what ails him, and that will slow down the Vikings offense in an irreplaceable way.
And on top of the fresh legs that you can logically expect the 49ers defense to have after their break, the re-introduction of speedy linebacker Kwon Alexander should bring the team even more “juice.”
If only for one week, I expect the 49ers’ dominant early-season defense to show up.
3. There are so many statistical similarities between 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and Cousins that you can’t help but think that 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan has completed his mission to mold the former into the latter.
Even the quarterback’s general differences seem to cancel each other out. Garoppolo has the better arm, but he takes more risks than Cousins, who rarely ever throws it to the other team.
But there is a margin between the two quarterbacks that will loom large on Saturday.
NFL playoff games almost always feature evenly-talented teams. You’re getting the best of the best. Saturday should be no different.
And with scores tight — think back to last weekend’s nail biters — games usually come down to third downs and late-game execution.
That’s where Garoppolo thrives.
The 49ers quarterback was the NFL’s best (among full-season starters) at completing passes in late and close-game situations. Garoppolo had a significant sample size, too — he had 90 such passes this season and completed 71% of them.
Garoppolo was also the NFL’s best third-down quarterback in 2019.
On third-and-medium (3 to 7 yards) passes, Garoppolo threw for a first down on an NFL-leading 63% of the time. In the ever-critical third-and-long situations, Garoppolo threw for a first down on 36.8% of this throws, the secondbest mark in the league.
Cousins isn’t bad — he’s not far behind Garoppolo in some of those categories — but, historically, there’s nothing special about him in tough moments.
Apparently, after making one outstanding throw in overtime against the Saints, that history needs to be rewritten. (I suppose we’re also supposed to ignore the fact that he had fewer than 200 yards passing in regulation of that game.)
The truth about Cousins shows up when you further isolate third-down performances against ninewin teams this past regular season. Cousins and the Vikings converted only an abysmal 25% of third downs in their five games against playoff-caliber opponents in 2019. Garoppolo and the 49ers converted 53% of the time in their seven such games.
Even adding in Minnesota’s impressive game against the Saints (10 of 18 on third downs), the 49ers’ thirddown dominance shines.
That shows the difference between a system quarterback like Cousins, who has little to no improvisational skills, and Garoppolo, who might drive his coach crazy at times but has shown the ability throughout his NFL career to make a play when things break down in big moments, as they well could on Saturday. PREDICTION » 49ers 29, Vikings 17.