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Predicting the Final Score of the 49ers-Bills Sunday Night Game

This might sound crazy, but the snow should help the 49ers on Sunday night.
Grant Cohn|
Jan 15, 2024; Orchard Park, New York, USA; Snow outside of Highmark Stadium during a 2024 AFC wild card game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Buffalo Bills. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Jan 15, 2024; Orchard Park, New York, USA; Snow outside of Highmark Stadium during a 2024 AFC wild card game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Buffalo Bills. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

BUFFALO -- This might sound crazy, but the snow should help the 49ers on Sunday night.

Normally, the cold weather would help the home team, but the snow should make it difficult for both teams to score. And that's good news for the 49ers considering the Bills average 29.1 points per game. The snow could be an equalizer.

Brock Purdy will attempt to play after missing last week with a shoulder injury. He says he's 100 percent healthy, but I still think the 49ers will be cautious with him and pass as infrequently as possible.

Three years ago, the Patriots beat the Bills 14-10 in Buffalo while passing just three times. I think the 49ers will try to do something similar tonight. Purdy potentially has a compromised throwing arm, plus he lacks velocity to begin with. He might run more than he passes in this game.

Don't be surprised if Christian McCaffrey runs the ball 20 times, Jordan Mason runs the ball 10 times, Isaac Guerendo runs the ball 5 times, Purdy runs the ball 5 times and Deebo Samuel runs it three times. The 49ers have every reason to use all of their running backs for the first time since McCaffrey returned from bilateral Achilles tendonitis.

When Purdy passes, expect him to fake the handoff and roll out of the pocket because the left side of the offensive line will be out. I'm talking both Trent Williams and Aaron Banks.

If the 49ers had their full offensive line, they might have enough to pull off the upset. But for now, it looks like they'll lose a low-scoring game.

FINAL SCORE PREDICTION: 49ers 13, Bills 17.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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