49ers Overcome Influx of Turnovers to Upset Rams 23-20 in Week 12
It was turnovers galore in the 49ers' 23-20 Week 12 win against the Rams.
Both teams combined for SEVEN turnovers with the first quarter alone registering four of them. For a while, this football matchup looked like a tennis match with all of the back-and-forth turnovers. Neither team wanted to take advantage of the gifts they were presenting each other.
That was until Javon Kinlaw intercepted Jared Goff and took it to the house for his first career pick six. The Rams would follow that up with an Aaron Donald forced fumble on Raheem Mostert that would be scooped and scored for a touchdown. Turnovers occurred left-and-right, yet they essentially were offset with each team's touchdown returns.
The 49ers were in control of the vast majority of this game.
For yet another game, defensive coordinator Robert Saleh rocked Sean McVay to sleep. The guy just knows how to work McVay as nothing went right for the Rams offensively for almost the entire game. It also helps to have Richard Sherman back on the field who did not look anywhere near rusty. Sherman looked like he is still a top-10 cornerback in the league.
Even the offense was stringing together some impressive drives. The offense looked unlocked with Mostert, Jeff Wilson Jr., and Deebo Samuel back in the lineup. Kyle Shanahan was just dialing up a methodical offensive drive one after another. Even the offensive line looked decent for a good portion of the game.
Unfortunately, Nick Mullens is the 49ers' starting quarterback.
Mullens completely caps what the 49ers can be on offense. Simple passes that any average quarterback should make were completely missed by him. The entire team needs to be almost perfect just to emerge victorious, which is exactly what happened.
All of the players who returned played lights out and you can even argue Samuel was the most important. Mullens needed a playmaking receiver and that is what he got with Samuel on the final offensive drive of the game. Mullens was able to execute a few clutch throws to Samuel that lead to the game-winning field goal by Robbie Gould.
But this game took a lot for the 49ers to win.
If they hope to continue this final playoff push, then they are going to somehow need to keep playing at this high-level. Or Mullens could always start playing better, but I would not hold my breath.
