The Kyle Shanahan winning streak against Sean McVay ended last Sunday, as the 49ers lost to the Rams in deflating fashion. But this week is their chance for redemption, they will face the Bill Belichick-less Patriots. The 49ers are heavy favorites to win this matchup, but what will they have to do to secure the victory? Who will be the big playmakers that win the game for the Red and Gold?
1. Fred Warner
Fred Warner is the best LB in the world today. No one compares to Warner, and his greatness will be utilized against the Patriots in so many ways. Let’s start with the run game, the Patriots have run the ball in 3 gaps primarily this season. The most crucial gap for Wanrer is going to be the Center Right Guard gap, the A gap. Warner will be ready to run into those trenches and it’s already been shown this year. So far this season Fred Warner has received a Run Defense grade of 83.6 from PFF. You might read that and think, “That doesn’t seem too high”. No, you are wrong. Look at it relative to other players that are coverage linebackers. Among all LBs ranked 80+ in PFF’s coverage grade, Fred Warner has the Highest Run Defense Grade. On top of that, Warner has the second-highest coverage grade among LBs at 93.3. He’s a freak of nature. He can cover the middle of the field better than anyone, and stops the run better than all of them too. It’s just unfair. All of that helps him in the passing game against the Patriots. Jacoby Brissett throws the ball in the middle of the field between 0-10 yards 52.2% of the time. Yes, 52.2%!. Fred Warner is just drooling thinking about Sunday.
2. 49ers Wide Receivers
Last week was a tough one for everyone in the Receiver core, well everyone except Jauan Jennings. Jennings had an amazing performance that somehow didn’t earn him NFC Offensive Player of the Week. How did he not earn the award? God knows. But back to the point, this Receiver room had plenty of crucial dropped balls and underperformance altogether. Brandon Aiyuk looks rusty, Ronnie Bell looks horrendously bad, and Deebo is still listed as Questionable. All of the issues and past mistakes need to be forgotten this week. If Brock Purdy is going to come into this game hunting for a win, his guys gotta get open and hold onto the ball. It can’t be a repeat of last week, Jauan Jennings carries the pass game and looks like he’s going to blackout due to exhaustion. Another receiver going down would be the death of this team, so it’s time for the other names to start to become reliable. Maybe throwing Jacob Cowing some reps opens things up, or maybe it’s team chemistry getting better. What has to happen is some reliability from people not named Jauan Jennings.
3. Nick Sorensen
If you asked me at the start of the season, what teams have the most talent on defense I would’ve told you the Steelers, Lions, and of course the 49ers. Top to bottom, those teams are filled with ballplayers. Little did I know that the 49ers would be ranked at 12th according to PFF after 3 weeks. This feels absurd to me. A defense with the best safety duo in the league, the best linebacker in the league, the 2022 NFL Defensive Player of the Year on the defensive line, and so much more is 12th in the league. The math doesn’t add up. The only part of the equation unaccounted for is the Defensive Coordinator Nick Sorensen. Sorensen has not been the play-caller the 49ers were hoping for after departing with Steve Wilks. Maybe the locker room still likes him, but how many more weeks of failure will the team accept before they start to blame him? They clearly like him more than Wilks so maybe he’ll get the season, but the reality is if he doesn’t start to craft this team into the top 5 defense that it should be, history could repeat itself and a new DC could come in next year.
