Yes, the rain easing up had a hand in better offensive execution by the Rams Thursday night in Santa Clara. But as so often becomes the case between them and the 49ers in recent years, controlling time of possession was going to becoming an increasingly critical factor in winning the matchup.
After edging San Francisco 15:35-14:25 in the first half, Los Angeles had possession of the ball nearly twice as long as the 49ers in the second half, 19:29 to the 49ers' 10:31.
"Like (head) coach (Sean McVay) was saying, I mean, you can kind of get the feeling that that was the kind of way this game was going to be played," quarterback Matthew Stafford said postgame. "It was going to have to be one of those games."
Stafford pointed to better execution helping the Rams offense. He said that in the first quarter, the ball was "fine," before weather contributed to some of the sloppiness in the second quarter and made it difficult to hold onto the football. In the second half, the weather was "good enough" for L.A.'s offense "to do it all."
The Rams opened the game with five straight punts before coming away with a field goal. Although they punted on their first possession of the second half, they would enter the red zone on each of their remaining three drives and come away with field goals.
The game-defining drive came when Los Angeles regained possession after cornerback Darious Williams' interception with 5:14 left in the fourth quarter. A steady dose of patient running by running back Kyren Williams and timely playmaking by Stafford on a four-plus-minute drive effectively left the 49ers with two, maybe three chances to throw the game-tying, or game-winning, touchdown.
"When you look at it, it was a gritty, tough win but there were three good possessions to end that game that resulted in field goals," McVay said. "Obviously, we want to finish in the red area. [Beat reporter] Gary [Klein] was right. I didn't like a couple of the play calls that I had down there, but in all seriousness, I think there were some situations where I know that I could have put our players in some better spots. What I would say was consistency on the early downs. I thought we got gritty yards. We were pretty regulated in some of the schemes that we were running as the game went on, but we were able to get good knockoff and good removal. I think that opened up some different things off those actions in the pass game where we were able to activate our tight ends a little bit. Then guys made plays when we did have to get to some of the third downs to extend drives. I thought the big explosive to (wide receiver) Puka (Nacua) on the drive starter for 51 (yards) was a huge play. We would've loved to have capitalized and finished that drive with a touchdown, but I think it was the consistency of the execution and then I thought there was a grit and a toughness in terms of being able to close out a game. I was proud of the group."
Williams himself also took some blame for the lack of execution in the first half, saying he was too anxious trying to find and hit those holes initially. But as he began to see what the 49ers were trying to do – bring the safety down to disrupt the Rams' run game – he realized that, once he saw the safety trigger and got off his blocks, "they really had nobody left behind there."
"Obviously there were a couple runs where, every single game I wish I had a couple runs back," Williams said. "But just being able to answer to that call, answer to that, 'we got to run the ball, got to stay consistent and be efficient,' that's what it's all about as a running back."
