49ers’ make confusing season-opening win vs. the Lions
If you’re going to start off the season, you might as well do it in a strange fashion.
The 49ers are 1-0, but it’s difficult to make sense of their 41-33 win over the Lions.
It was, at times, great. It was, down the stretch, painful to watch.
It produced some sterling studs and jarring duds.
How peculiar was this game? There was one player who qualified as both as stud and a dud:
Stud
Elijah Mitchell: With Trey Sermon out and Raheem Mostert injured early in the first quarter, the Niners turned to Mitchell to be the team’s top running back.
He delivered, going 38 yards to the end zone on a pitch to the right on his first full-time series.
Mitchell became the 34th player in modern NFL history to rush for over 100 yards in his NFL debut, joining the likes of Marshall Faulk, Marcus Allen, Ladainian Tomlinson, Edgerrin James, and Adrian Peterson.
Not bad company. Mitchell’s one-cut-andso speed left Detroit’s heads spinning all game. What really stood out, though, was his toughness. Mitchell — 5-foot-10, 200-pounds — took some serious licks in this game.
He kept taking handoffs.
There’s no question that Mostert is the Niners’ best running back, but this was always likely to be a lameduck season.
With the success of Mitchell Sunday, it’s a near guarantee that Mostert’s time in San Francisco is up at the end of the season.
Dee Ford: Welcome back, Mr. Ford.
The 49ers’ defensive line was outstanding in pass rush Sunday, but Ford made a noticeable impact on his limited snaps, picking up a sack, and two quarterback hurries.
Nick Bosa was, unquestionably, the best pass rusher in the game — he had a sack, two hurries, and three tackles for loss. Kentavious Street was strong, too, with a sack and a tackle behind the line of scrimmage, too.
But it was Ford’s bounceback that needs to be most
highlighted. No one knew what the Niners would get from Ford this season. There's a long, long way to go, but if this is the Ford the Niners can expect moving forward, then their pass rush has a chance to be the best in the NFL again.
Jimmy Garoppolo: He didn't throw the 49ers' first touchdown of the game, but that didn't quite matter — he was strong on Sunday, limiting mistakes and pushing the ball downfield in ways that we have only seen in spurts throughout his Niners' career.
It was rock solid, and it kept Trey Lance — the next big thing — on the bench for most of the game, save for a few early redzone situations and some random plays throughout.
Garoppolo was 9-of-12 for 136 yards (111.8 quarterback rating) at halftime with the Niners up three touchdowns. In all, he was 16-for-24 for 303 yards — his first 300-plus-yard game since his incredible performance in New Orleans in 2019 — with a touchdown.
Lance will likely see more and more snaps in the coming weeks — his finger injury really set him back at the end of camp — but Garoppolo only solidified his status as QB1 with a tough, professional performance.
Duds
Deebo Samuel: The stat line tells you everything you need to know about Samuel's game.
Eight catches, 178 yards, and a touchdown.
Now that's a big game.
The Lions had no answer for Samuel all game. His route-running was crisp. His speed was unmatched. And if Samuel didn't have separation, he would simply run over a Lion or two.
Samuel's 79-yard touchdown pass was a thing of beauty from the standpoint of wide receiver — Samuel caught Jimmy Garoppolo's arcing pass to the sideline like a punt, re-adjusting to the underthrown ball. He then cut across the field at a diagonal, leaving the Lions' chasing him in the dust.
Some of Samuel's success needs to be attributed to Detroit's egregiously bad secondary, but the South Carolina product also lost weight this past offseason and didn't consistently struggle with injuries throughout training camp.
He came into this season ready to play — ready to show the league his full potential.
One game in, and he's following through on that promise.
Duds
Deebo Samuel, again: The game was over, won, locked up.
Samuel caught a pass over the middle for a game-icing firstdown in Lions' territory.
But before Samuel went down, he fumbled the ball back to Detroit.
The 49ers were able to hold on to win the game — the pass rush reached Goff and forced an incompletion on fourth down deep in Niners' territory with seconds remaining — but that fumble provided Detroit a legitimate chance to tie a contest that should have never been in question.
There were plenty of other factors in play, but that, folks, is unforgivable.
The Niners' second-string defense: It was as if the 49ers saw Jason Verrett go down with what is reportedly an ACL injury in the second half and then decided to coast the rest of the way home. That did not work out.
The Lions — playing with nothing to lose — took full advantage of a tired pass rush and a lacking secondary in the final quarter. Detroit consistently attacked Dontae Johnson — Verrett's replacement — on the left side of the field in the final minutes of the game.
San Francisco came into the season with a depth problem at cornerback. If Verrett is, indeed, out for a long while, this team is in a serious bind.
Brandon Aiyuk: The 49ers' first-round pick in 2020 spent the vast majority of the game on the sideline, or, more specifically, in Kyle Shanahan's doghouse.
Aiyuk's drop issue at the end of training camp put him on notice, and his poor blocking ability (unforgivable in Shanahan's offense) made playing him — despite all his talent — a legitimate question going into the season.
The 49ers' head coach answered that question, definitively, Sunday.
Are we in Dante Pettis territory? Not yet.
But the train is on the tracks. Aiyuk needs to have a great week of practice in West Virginia — at least for the sake of fantasy football owners everywhere.
Zach Kerr: It feels inappropriate to single out just Kerr, as this was an overall team issue — but he was brought in, specifically, to shore up the 49ers' interior run defense.
And on Sunday, in Game 1, the 49ers were gashed up the middle on run after run by the Lions.
There were a few nice stops on obvious running third and fourth downs, but ultimately, the Niners' run defense left a lot to be desired against Detroit. Other teams are going to take notice — the Niners can't win like that.
Kyle Shanahan: The 49ers had a huge, late lead.
They almost choked it away. How many times have we said that about a Shanahan team over his career as a play-caller?
San Francisco was lucky this time, but Shanahan needs to figure out why things like this keep happening to him. And if that requires some sage or a ghostbuster, the 49ers should be able to cover those costs.