Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Numbers that matter from the 49ers’ season-opening loss.
The 49ers’ Week 1 loss to the Bears was strange. Judging by the stats San Francisco probably should’ve won instead of losing 19-10.
Box scores rarely tell the whole story of a game though, so we sifted through the numbers to figure out which ones will really matter for the 49ers moving into Week 2.
Let’s do some box score scouting:
Everything we know in the immediate aftermath of a bad 49ers loss to the Bears.
Everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the 49ers in their season opener at Chicago. They led by 10 at the half, but the Bears rattled off 19 unanswered points to secure a season-opening victory in an epic collapse by San Francisco that featured turnovers, penalties and all the factors that portend losses in the NFL.
Let’s go over what we know:
Yikes. Tough way to start the year for the 49ers. Thoughts from the opener:
The 49ers were dominating their season opener in Chicago, until they weren’t. A 10-0 lead at halftime evaporated quickly and the Bears pulled away for a 19-10 victory at Soldier Field.
Here are our notes and observations from a bad Sunday for San Francisco:
WATCH: Deebo Samuel back like he never left.
And we back, and we back, and we back. @19problemz
📺 #SFvsCHI on @NFLonFOX pic.twitter.com/ysg93vGdlo
— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) September 11, 2022
The 49ers finally got it together for a full drive. After some issues with protection, a couple missed throws and a turnover ended their other drives, San Francisco punched one in to go ahead 7-0 five minutes into the second quarter. There was a triple option to start the drive. Then QB Trey Lance threw a dime to WR Ray-Ray McCloud for 20 yards. A few plays later it was Deebo Samuel lined up in the backfield, and he took a handoff around the right side for the game’s opening score.
WATCH: 49ers S Talanoa Hufanga notches first career interception.
Big INTzz! @TalanoaHufanga
📺 #SFvsCHI on @NFLonFOX pic.twitter.com/w5sMIJcnZO
— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) September 11, 2022
The 49ers got a turnover back after Deebo Samuel fumbled the ball to the Bears. On a third-and-7, Bears QB Justin Fields let a throw rip to the middle of the field and 49ers safety Talanoa Hufanga was lingering for the first interception of his career.
The San Francisco 49ers will meet the Chicago Bears in Week 1 of the NFL season on Sunday afternoon from Soldier Field.
The San Francisco 49ers will meet the Chicago Bears in Week 1 of the NFL season on Sunday afternoon from Soldier Field.
The 49ers will be expecting a lot out of their new quarterback Trey Lance as they look to improve over their 10-win season last year. Meanwhile, the Bears struggled yet again last season with only six wins as they look to Justin Fields and new head coach Matt Eberflus to turn things around this year.
This will be a great opening weekend to the NFL season, here is everything you need to know to watch and stream the game on Sunday.
NFL odds courtesy of Tipico Sportsbook. Odds were last updated Sunday at 10:00 a.m. ET. Â
San Francisco 49ers (-6.5) vs. Chicago Bears
Over/Under: 40.5Â
See more at Sportsbookwire.com
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The 49ers have officially ruled out TE George Kittle vs. Chicago.
The 49ers have officially ruled out tight end George Kittle from their Week 1 opener in Chicago. He was listed among the seven inactive players, along with third-round rookie running back Tyrion Davis-Price.
Here’s the full inactive list:
TE George Kittle (groin)
OL Daniel Brunskill (hamstring)
RB Ty Davis-Price
WR Danny Gray
QB Brock Purdy
DL Jordan Willis
OL Nick Zakelj
Kittle being ruled out isn’t a surprise after he didn’t practice all week due to a groin injury. The club is probably smart not to push it at this point of the year and risk a longer-term injury, especially if they expect he can play next week.
Davis-Price is the second third-round running back in as many years to be a healthy inactive for Week 1. Trey Sermon suffered the same fate last season. Instead undrafted rookie RB Jordan Mason will be up alongside Elijah Mitchell and Jeff Wilson Jr.
Three of the other inactives are rookies. As the third QB Purdy will likely be inactive each week Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo are healthy. Gray is the sixth WR for now and his effectiveness was likely to be diminished anyway in the rainy Chicago weather. Zakelj is the last OL on the depth chart and likely an inactive as long as the rest of the OL is healthy.
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The 49ers are favored big vs. the Bears, but the total is what really jumps out Sunday.
The handwringing over the 49ers’ 2022 season commenced when Jimmy Garoppolo restructured his contract to return to San Francisco and planted some seeds of doubt in the club’s confidence in first-year starter Trey Lance. If there’s a hiccup coming from Lance, the betting lines don’t anticipate it coming in Week 1 when the 49ers face the Bears in Chicago. Tipico Sportsbook has the 49ers favored by 6.5 points on the road. They’re -340 on the money line as well, making them the largest Week 1 favorite.
It’s easy to see a path where the 49ers cover the 6.5 points while Lance struggles. San Francisco could wind up fielding the top defense in the NFL while featuring perhaps the league’s top pass rush. That unit has a chance to feast on a Bears offensive line that doesn’t project to be a strong point of their offense. Once we factor in their lack of top-end talent with their pass catchers it all adds up to a long day for Chicago’s offense.
That 6.5-point number is key because even a 10-3 49ers victory gets them the cover without pushing.
There’s not a ton of value in the 49ers on the money line. Bettors have to place a $340 bet to win $100. The more interesting non-spread number is the total. Tipico has the over/under set at 41.5 with the under going at -115 (bet $115 to win $100). San Francisco’s defense should be stingy Sunday, but the Bears defensive line against a shaky 49ers offensive front could make for tough sledding for Lance and Co.
We like a low-scoring 49ers win.
Picks: 49ers -6.5, under 41.5
Jimmy Garoppolo was good for the #49ers in Chicago. Now what?
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Jimmy Garoppolo was excellent for the 49ers in Chicago, but one performance is not going to be enough to garner a ton of equity in the ongoing discussion about whether he should continue as San Francisco’s starting quarterback. What matters now for Garoppolo is what he does next.
There wasn’t much doubt that Garoppolo could have a game like the one he had Sunday at Soldier Field. He was an efficient 17-for-28 for 322 yards, and he ran for two touchdowns. There were no giveaways and no sacks. It looked a lot like his Week 1 performance in Detroit with a couple more standout plays involved.
Questions about Garoppolo’s viability as a starter were never about his peak. The best version of Garoppolo could go toe-to-toe with Drew Brees and the Saints in the Superdome. The questions are about how often he can have games like the one he had in Chicago, and Sunday’s game will earn him at least one more chance to prove it can be a more regular occurrence. At least for a week the Trey Lance conversation will be quieted.
There’s some reason for optimism for Garoppolo and the 49ers’ offense though.
He finished 2019 with a string of 10 mostly strong outings. In those last 10 he completed 69.6 percent of his throws and posted a 16-game pace of 4,262 yards, 32 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. It was a much more productive stretch than his six games to start the year, and it coincided with the arrival of wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders in a trade with the Broncos.
This year there’s unlikely to be such a trade, but Garoppolo can rely on some in-house talent to provide a similar injection of playmaking.
Wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk finally emerged Sunday in Chicago with a season-high seven targets. He caught four of them for 45 yards, hauled in a two-point conversion, and got on the same page as Garoppolo to come open for a big gain when a play broke down and Garoppolo had to get outside the pocket. Tight end George Kittle is also set to come off injured reserve in Week 9 per head coach Kyle Shanahan.
An Aiyuk that more closely resembles the player the 49ers got during his rookie year would be a sizable upgrade for the receiving corps, and a healthy Kittle is one of the most explosive pass-catching tight ends in the NFL.
Garoppolo still has to prove he can recapture the production he posted in the final 10 games of the 2019 season, but Sunday’s game against the Bears was the first real evidence that he still had that type of contest left in him. Now he has to string a few more together. If he does the Lance talk will quiet just in time for the playoff talk to get louder.
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The #49ers’ win over the Bears involved a first for Kyle Shanahan as a head coach.
The 49ers’ win in Chicago was unique in the Kyle Shanahan era and helped the club exorcise a demon that was quietly hanging over them since 2017.
By coming back from a 16-9 second-half deficit, the victory was San Francisco’s first under Shanahan when trailing by seven or more points at any time in the second half.
San Francisco hadn’t had a comeback like the one they had in Chicago since Week 16 of the 2016 season when they trailed the Rams 21-7 in the fourth quarter and came back to win 22-21 in Colin Kaepernick’s final victory with the club, per Josh Dubow of the Associated Press.
That is correct. The #49ers rallied from 7+ down in 2nd half to win for first time since 12/24/16 when they rallied from 21-7 down in 4th quarter to beat Rams 22-21 under Chip Kelly https://t.co/jxkuDSHBO9
— Josh Dubow (@JoshDubowAP) October 31, 2021
It was an impressive road win for the 49ers, who got out to a sluggish start against a struggling Chicago team. The Bears went ahead 13-6 late in the first half, but a Joey Slye field goal made it 13-9 at the half. Chicago extended their lead to seven with a field goal on their first series of the third quarter.
There were times it looked like the 49ers might not complete the long-awaited second-half comeback. They looked like they’d tied the game with a Jimmy Garoppolo touchdown run to make it 16-15, but Slye missed the extra point.
The 49ers took a seven-point lead early in the fourth quarter, but the Bears drove down on the ensuing drive and looked to tie it with a 22-yard Justin Fields run. However, their kicker Cairo Santos missed the extra point to keep the 49ers up 23-22.
San Francisco scored the final 10 points of Sunday’s game to secure the first seven-point second-half comeback of Shanahan’s tenure has head coach.
