Freshened Bolts face battered 49ers prey

In the NFL week ahead, we’ll learn if the Shamrock Chargers can turn good luck into a muchneeded win next Monday night against the Cowboys.

While the Chargers were relaxing Sunday, the Cowboys had to play the 49ers — the last club a team wants to face if it has to win the game that follows.

“We’re a violent physical football team, that’s the standard of the San Francisco 49ers,” tight end George Kittle said after the 42-10 rout left several Cowboys injured and others looking spent. Let’s go to the numbers. Proof that it’s hard to unhammer a nail, every team that played within a week after facing San Francisco last season also lost that game.

Folks, that’s an 0-16 record — and when we add in the 1-3 mark this year, that’s 19 next-week defeats for the Niners’ past 20 regular-season opponents.

While a 5-percent win rate is dumbfounding on the whole, it’s clear the Niners (5-0) play a style of football that taxes opponents.

Their offense can bend a defense every which way.

Causing hesitancy that puts defenders in bad positions, the 49ers pose a bewildering array of potential runs and play-action passes. No one else employs so many versatile blockers and multi-positional playmakers, giving chess master Kyle Shanahan extra ways to create havoc.

San Francisco’s defense, Dak Prescott can attest, endangers quarterbacks. The Cowboys’ QB took three sacks and other hits Sunday en route to a dismal 51.6 passer rating. Ten months earlier at Santa Clara, he logged a 63.6 rating in San Francisco’s 19-12 playoff victory.

For the Chargers (2-2) a lot comes down to cashing in on the bye week by beating the Cowboys (3-2).

When the Cowboys show up in the Kroenke Dome, the Justin Herbert offense may have regained Austin Ekeler. The star running back will have had five weeks to recover from an ankle injury from which he returned later in the Week 1 game.

A loss to the Cowboys would turn the dials to “must win” the following week, at Kansas City, against a Chiefs team that figures to be 6-1 after facing the Broncos (1-4) on Thursday night.

Sounding Off

My ears tell me Cris Collinsworth’s contract stipulates he’s paid by the word.

San Marcos’ Fred Warner has a real shot at the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year award.

Hedge fund giant David Tepper has had his lunch handed to him many a Sunday since he bought the Panthers. In the five-plus seasons, Carolina is 29-58 (.333).

• Panthers QB Bryce Young, drafted first overall this year, looks only so-so for a rookie on an under-talented team.

• Steelers GM Omar Khan deserved an ovation Sunday in Pittsburgh, in addition to the one rookie CB Joey Porter Jr. earned by intercepting Lamar Jackson’s inaccurate pass in the end zone to spur a comeback victory. Khan drafted Porter, who maintained perfect position on Odell Beckham Jr.’s fade route, enabling the pickoff. But Khan’s better move was the trade that made the selection possible. Sending WR

Chase Claypool to the Bears last season landed Chicago’s second-round pick and when the Bears lost the rest of their games, the slotting rose to first in the second round and 32nd overall. In turn, Da Bears grew so disenchanted with Claypool they dealt him earlier this month to the Dolphins. Their “haul” was a sixthround draft pick, in return for Claypool and a seventhround pick.

• The trade-averse

Spanos-Telesco Chargers and several other NFL power brokers almost never get burned in a trade but nor do they reap rewards that go to the astutely aggressive Eagles, Chiefs, 49ers and Steelers. Which approach is more apt to build a Super Bowl team?

• It’s still astounding that

George Pickens was the 11th receiver taken in the 2023 draft. Coming off a good rookie season, Pickens is again showing the in-themoment acceleration that wins games. Midway into a go route Sunday against the

Ravens’ top cornerback, the 6-foot-3 receiver ran away and collected Kenny Pickett’s strike for a large Steelers TD.

• The Chargers cannot relate to what the Colts (3-2) are going through at quarterback. Five games into his rookie year, Anthony Richardson missed one start after he was concussed and will sit out this week’s game with the throwingshoulder injury he sustained Sunday, when he was taken hard to the turf on a designed run in the red zone. Number of starts for which Philip Rivers and Justin Herbert were unavailable in their combined 17-plus seasons with the Chargers: zero.

• Mike Shanahan could be too headstrong — he overexposed slender Robert Griffin in the QB’s rookie year, resulting in too many hits — but the retired NFL coach who directed two Super Bowl champions has made the NFL more watchable in 2023. His former assistants Mike McDaniel

(Dolphins) and son Kyle

(49ers) are designing and calling plays for two highly entertaining offenses. At 8.3 yards per play, the Dolphins are 2 yards above the Niners, who stand second. From the elder Shanahan — whose coaching career began at rushing-game powerhouse Oklahoma under Barry Switzer — they learned intricacies to the ground game, play-action passing and leadership. McDaniel, who worked several years under Kyle Shanahan, wisely invested five draft picks and a big contract in WR Tyreek Hill. Kyle Shanahan and San Diego’s John Lynch were right to trade for RB