San Francisco 49ers: How to Complete the Sweep of the St. Louis Rams in Week 9

So much has changed since the San Francisco 49ers last played the St. Louis Rams.  The Rams have defeated the defending world champion Seattle Seahawks.  The Rams have acquired a former first-round pick to shore up their secondary.  The 49ers have had to break in a rookie as their starting center.  The Arizona Cardinals have opened up a two-game lead in the division.  It’s like an entirely different season!

…Alright, that’s overstating things since the 49ers and Rams last met just three weeks ago.  It’s always odd to see the NFL scheduling two divisional games so close to one another.  The 49ers haven’t had a chance to play the Seattle Seahawks yet, and the Rams haven’t encountered the Cardinals yet, but they’re about to close accounts against one another. 

That’s the way the schedule crumbles, however, and the 49ers now have to put the Rams away before moving on to a tough two-game road trip.

The 49ers are double-digit favorites, according to Odds Shark, so they are expected to handle the Rams without too many problems.  They were also expected to handle the Rams in their last meeting, however, and the Rams jumped out to a 14-0 lead before the 49ers could get control of the game.  You can’t overlook anyone in the NFL, even a 2-5 team whose season is pretty much over at this point.

What can the 49ers learn from their first matchup against the Rams?  What can they repeat, and what do they need to clean up in order to ensure a victory?  Let’s flash back three weeks and note some of the high and low points from that matchup.

Get Vernon Davis Back on Track

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Vernon Davis’ game against the Rams was one of the worst games in his NFL career.  Davis had three receptions for 30 yards, sure, but he dropped two more passes aimed his way and broke up a touchdown pass intended for Vance McDonald.  He was flagged for a false start and nearly gave up an interception on a poorly ran route on the first play of the game.

To be somewhat fair to Davis, it was his first game back in action after a back injury, and so some rust is to be expected.  Perhaps a bye week was just what the doctor ordered to get him back to full speed.

On the other hand, Davis has yet to have a good game this season—he’s definitely not been the type of game-changing player he has been in the past.  He’s caught only 14 passes for 142 yards, tied for 36th-most among tight ends, per Pro-Football-Reference.com.  He’s never been that low in a full season before.

It’s even odder because the Rams haven’t played well against tight ends in general this season.  Cooper Helfet, a former undrafted tight end playing for the Seahawks, had three receptions for 61 yards and a touchdown just two weeks ago against St. Louis. 

Jason Witten had four catches for 49 yards, Travis Kelce had four catches for 45 yards, and so on—the Rams haven’t been great at covering tight ends at all this season.

If the 49ers are going to make a run at the postseason this year, they need Davis to get back into his groove—and quickly.  One way to do so might be to attack new Rams addition Mark Barron, assuming he plays this week. 

Barron will have had less than a week to learn the playbook and has been the 13th-worst safety in the NFL this year, according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required).  Barron’s being pressed into service, thanks to an injury to Rodney McLeod, who was lost this past week.  Perhaps Davis can give him a fitting welcome into the NFC West.

Attack Scott Wells

Tom Gannam/Associated Press

In Week 6, the 49ers brought pressure early and often, and center Scott Wells had the worst day of it.  He allowed seven quarterback hurries, according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), his worst day of what’s been a pretty bad season so far.  While none of that pressure resulted in a sack, quarterback Austin Davis was rotten under pressure—he completed only six passes on 15 attempts when rushers got to him.

Making matters worse, Wells had to leave last week’s game with a hurt elbow, being replaced by second-year player Barrett Jones.  That means the 49ers will get to play against either an inexperienced young player or the worst-rated center in football, according to PFF, either of which bodes well.

The 49ers don’t normally rush their middle linebackers; it was Ray McDonald, Aaron Lynch and Ahmad Brooks doing most of the pass rushing three weeks ago.  Therefore, they might want to consider doing more stunts and attacking the interior of the line, rather than simply rushing the edges every time.

Or, they could just decide to step up with the middle linebackers more frequently.  Five out of the 17 times PFF recorded Patrick Willis, Michael Wilhoite or Chris Borland rushing against the Rams (subscription required), they registered a hurry.  If they can repeat that sort of success, this game shouldn’t even be a contest.

Welcome Austin Davis to San Francisco

Scott Kane/Associated Press

Let’s talk a little bit longer about Austin Davis’ struggles against the 49ers—because struggle he did.

His raw numbers—21-of-42 for 236 yards, a touchdown and an interception—don’t look that bad for an undrafted third-stringer who has been forced into action this year.  In fact, that’s actually his low-water mark, statistically, this season.  The problem is, a lot of those numbers came very early on in the game.

Early on, the Rams were showing a bunch of exotic looks and plays they hadn’t performed on film before—that helped them jump out to a 14-0 lead.  The new looks confused the 49ers defense and gave Davis plenty of time to make big plays.  Davis was 11-of-14 in that first half for 137 yards, well on his way to a good day.

Then, the Rams had to eventually resort to running their regular offense, and things went downhill from there.  Davis completed only 35 percent of his passes for less than 100 yards in the second half and was absolutely battered.

This happened because the 49ers started getting pressure without blitzing.  They only had to rush four guys at a time to get into the backfield, and then Davis started getting erratic.  They sacked him four times and hurried or hit him on 18 additional plays (subscription required), per PFF, which severely impacted his ability to play football. 

Give him a clean pocket and he’s actually decent.  Under pressure, however, he’s crumbled.  The 49ers held him to a QB rating of 27.1, per PFF, when they pressured him in Week 6, which they did on almost half of his dropbacks.

Further impacting Davis’ ability to avoid pressure this week will be injuries.  Jake Long is out for the season with a torn ACL, which will move rookie Greg Robinson to left tackle, protecting Davis’ blind side.  Robinson actually looked pretty good against the 49ers, but he didn’t have to put up with the combination of Dan Skuta and Aaron Lynch.   

Skuta picked up his first two sacks of the season against the Rams, while Lynch was in the the backfield regularly.  Stack them up against Greg Robinson and Davis should be running for his life back there.

Secure the Right Side of the Line

Billy Hurst/Associated Press

The 49ers’ biggest offensive problem against the Rams came from the play of Jonathan Martin at right tackle.

Martin did not deal with William Hayes well at all, as Hayes was by far the Rams’ defensive star.  Hayes racked up seven pressures and two stops against the run, per PFF, dominating the combination of Martin and right guard Alex Boone.

There’s good news for the 49ers in this game, however—Martin won’t be starting.  Anthony Davis is healthy once again, and while he had a rough first game back against Denver two weeks ago, he now should be back in the swing of things.

This is a critical area for the 49ers to improve upon.  This season Colin Kaepernick looks comfortable running to his left, because he scrambles that way so often—more often this year than in the past.  I think that’s in large part thanks to the poor play of the right side of the line—pressure keeps coming from that side, forcing Kaepernick to scramble left.

Davis' return to full-time active duty is important, as he’s several leaps and bounds better than Martin.  If the 49ers can shut down Hayes, there shouldn’t be much pressure at all—the rest of the Rams team combined for only seven pressures back in Week 6 (subscription required), according to PFF, with only Kendall Langford and Aaron Donald succeeding on multiple plays. 

Secure the right side of the line and Kaepernick should have all day to scan the defense.

Do Better on Short Situations

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In the fourth quarter of the Rams game, as the 49ers were trying to run out the clock, they had three plays on either fourth down or 3rd-and-1.  Had the 49ers been able to get a first down or touchdown on any of these plays, the Rams don’t have a chance to make a comeback—remember, the Rams had the ball at the end of the game with a chance to tie it.

Instead, Carlos Hyde ran for twice for no yards, and Frank Gore ran once for no yards.  These are three huge negative plays that could have allowed the Rams to pull off an amazing comeback.  They ended up not mattering in the long run, but just because they didn’t come back to bite the 49ers in that game doesn’t mean they couldn’t hurt them in the future.

In fact, the 49ers have called Gore or Hyde’s number nine times on third or fourth down with three or fewer yards to go.  The end results?  Gore has seven carries for 12 yards and three first downs, and Hyde has two carries for zero yards and no first downs.  That’s not good.

The 49ers have struggled at these situations recently; they’re getting a first down on 49.5 percent of these downs since Jim Harbaugh took over in 2011, per Pro-Football-Reference.com.  Their 102 first downs are the fewest in the league over that time period.  That needs to change.

If the 49ers find this game closer than anticipated and have to line up for another plunge through the line, maybe they should try some misdirection or a play-action pass—because just smashing into the line has not served the 49ers well for years.  That may not matter this week, but it could be the difference between winning and losing a game this season, when the 49ers have almost no margin for error.

Bryan Knowles is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the San Francisco 49ers.  Follow him @BryKno on Twitter.