San Francisco Has The Two Highest Run Defense Grades In The League So Far, And Four Of The Ten Lowest

San Francisco beat Los Angeles 27-7 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and for most of the afternoon the Rams moved the ball. They gained 290 yards. They made 15 first downs. They ran 29 times for 122 yards, a 4.2 average, and in the third quarter they put together a drive of 12 plays and 72 yards that held the ball for 7:22.

It ended at the San Francisco 1 on fourth and one, with no gain, and Los Angeles did not threaten again.

The drive chart is the cleanest account of the game. Los Angeles had ten possessions. Three of them reached inside the San Francisco 20, and one produced a touchdown. The Rams converted 2 of 9 third downs and 1 of 3 fourth downs, and they scored nothing in the second half. San Francisco scored on five of its nine drives and led by 20 at the end.

The grading layer puts the 49ers at both ends of the same board.

Pro Football Focus graded 59 defenders at ten or more run defense snaps across the two Week 1 games that have been played. PFF has Fred Warner first of those 59 and Nick Bosa second. The four men PFF counts as San Francisco interior defensive linemen, Osa Odighizuwa, Gracen Halton, C.J. West and James Thompson Jr., are all in the bottom ten of that same 59.

That denominator is small and it moves. Only two of Week 1's sixteen games had been played by Friday: Seattle beat New England on Wednesday, and this one on Thursday. The other fourteen kick off Sunday. Every rank above is a rank among the players who have played, and a ranking inside one vendor's method is not a fact about football.

San Francisco played the opener without its starting defensive tackle, and lost him three days before kickoff.

Alfred Collins tore a patellar tendon at practice in Australia on Tuesday, September 8. ESPN reported the same week that he is out for the season, and the club placed him on injured reserve on Thursday, the day of the game. Mykel Williams has been on the reserve list since the cut to 53 while he recovers from a torn anterior cruciate ligament, and he is not eligible to play before Week 5.

So four men split the work inside, and none of them took even 60 percent of it. Against 61 defensive snaps, the game book's playtime page gives Odighizuwa 36, Halton 31, West 23 and Thompson 21.

What the Rams actually bought with 4.2 a carry was small change.

The Rams' longest run by yardage of the afternoon went 13 yards, by Blake Corum in the second quarter. Kyren Williams carried 11 times and his longest went 8. The Rams ran 29 times and did not break one. Read the grade and the box score together and they describe the same thing from two directions: the middle of the San Francisco line was losing ground, and it was losing it a yard at a time, which is a different game from losing it in one piece.

At the goal line the yards ran out. Kyren Williams ran right guard from the 3 and got one, with Jaden Dugger and Warner on the tackle. Stafford threw short left to Puka Nacua on third and two and Deommodore Lenoir stopped him at the 1. On fourth and one, Stafford ran right guard for no gain, and the game book credits Odighizuwa on the play. The replay official reviewed the short-of-the-goal-line ruling and upheld it.

Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area, who graded the rushing defense a B-plus, called it the play of the game and named the men in the middle of it: "Osa Odighizuwa, Gracen Halton and Fred Warner were in the middle of an outstanding goal-line stand." Two of the three are in PFF's bottom ten. Marc Adams, writing for 49ers Webzone on September 11, put it the other way around: "They weren't great against the run, but that goal-line stand was the turning point."

San Francisco took over at its own 1 and drove 99 yards in 11 plays, six of them first downs, holding the ball 5:44 across the quarter break. Deebo Samuel caught a 15-yard touchdown to end it. The margin went from 10 to 17 and the game was over.

Odighizuwa graded like two different players, and the game book agrees with both halves.

PFF has him third of the 27 defenders at ten or more pass rush snaps so far, ahead of every other 49er, and in the bottom ten against the run. The official defensive table gives him four of San Francisco's eight quarterback hits on 36 snaps. Adams published five pressures for him on Friday, a wider count that takes in hurries as well as hits. Neither team was credited with a sack: the game book's line for times thrown attempting to pass reads 0-0 on both sides. Bosa had both of the two tackles for loss the 49ers recorded.

An interior lineman who rushes the passer well and grades near the bottom against the run is a recognizable kind of player, and he is the kind San Francisco now has to leave on the field on early downs, because the man who was supposed to take those snaps is on injured reserve.

The offensive line did something the box score states in one line.

San Francisco ran 64 offensive plays, allowed no sack and was not tackled for loss once. Connor Colby, Dominick Puni, Jake Brendel, Colton McKivitz and Trent Williams each played all 65 offensive snaps. PFF has all five inside the top 12 of the 21 linemen with ten or more pass blocking snaps so far.

Kyle Shanahan, after the game: "They (O-Line) did an unbelievable job. The long ball to D-Rob (Robinson) that was huge. I think we took a seven-step drop... Which normally I would never expect to get that first half pass rush. So it was a hell of a job by the protection by the whole line."

Run blocking was not uniform, and PFF says so at both ends again. Among the 46 blockers with eight or more run blocking snaps, McKivitz graded fifth and Kyle Juszczyk graded last, with George Kittle 43rd. San Francisco still ran for 174 yards on 30 carries, a 5.8 average, with Christian McCaffrey at 10 for 68 and rookie Kaelon Black at 14 for 65.

Brock Purdy threw three touchdowns on 6.0 yards a pass play.

He finished 25 of 34 for 205 yards, one interception and a 105.6 rating, and his three scoring throws covered 39, 2 and 15 yards. The 39 to Demarcus Robinson was his longest completion by yardage of the afternoon, and no other went past 15. Mike Evans caught six of seven for 49 and the two-yard fade, Samuel six of seven for 48.

Kittle played 30 of 65 snaps in his first game back, was targeted five times and caught two for 12 yards. PFF has him 23rd of the 26 receivers with ten or more routes on route grade and 25th of 26 on receiving grade. McCaffrey played 36 of 65 and graded last of that same 26 as a route runner, with five catches for 20 yards on eight targets. Black played 28 and out-carried him.

Those are the two men to watch on the 20th, when Miami comes to Levi's Stadium. The rest of Week 1 kicks off Sunday, and every one of those rankings moves when it does. The four men inside do not.

Sources: NFL official game book, San Francisco at Los Angeles, September 10, 2026. PFF Premium Week 1 grades, pulled September 11. 49ers.com postgame quotes. Matt Maiocco, NBC Sports Bay Area, September 10. Marc Adams, 49ers Webzone, September 11. ESPN on Alfred Collins. NBC Sports on Mykel Williams.