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How the 49ers Roster Stacks Up Against the Rams Roster

There's a reason the Rams just won the Super Bowl.
Grant Cohn|
How the 49ers Roster Stacks Up Against the Rams Roster
How the 49ers Roster Stacks Up Against the Rams Roster

In this story:

San Francisco 49ersLos Angeles Rams

We've compared the 49ers roster position by position to both the Seahawks and the Cardinals. Now let's finish the series and compare the 49ers to last season's Super Bowl Champions -- the Rams.

QUARTERBACK

Rams: Matthew Stafford.

49ers: Trey Lance

Advantage: Rams. Stafford just won his first Super Bowl. Lance has yet to make his third career start. No comparison, although Lance has the talent to become a smarter version of Stafford one day.

OFFENSIVE WEAPONS

Rams: WR Cooper Kupp, WR Allen Robinson, WR Van Jefferson, TE Tyler Higbee, RB Cam Akers.

49ers: WR Deebo Samuel, WR Brandon Aiyuk, TE George Kittle, RB Elijah Mitchell, FB Kyle Juszczyk.

Advantage: 49ers. Kupp is elit, and Jefferson and Higbee are solid, but Robinson is old and slow and Akers hasn't shown that he will regain the explosiveness he had before tearing his achilles. Conversely, the 49ers' group of skill players has no weaknesses.

OFFENSIVE LINE

Rams: LT Joe Noteboom, LG David Edwards, C Brian Allen, RG Logan Bruss, RT Rob Havenstein.

49ers: LT Trent Williams, LG Aaron Banks, C Jake Brendel, RG Daniel Brunskill, RT Mike McGlinchey.

Advantage: Rams. The Rams lost starting left tackle Andrew Whitworth this offseason, but Noteboom is a quality replacement. The only real question mark on the Rams offensive line is Bruss, because he's a rookie. The 49ers have four question marks on their offensive line. And although they have a great left tackle, that doesn't mean they'll keep Lance upright. The 49ers had Williams in 2020 and still gave up a league high 83 quarterback hits.

DEFENSIVE LINE

Rams: Leonard Floyd, Aaron Donald, Greg Gaines, Justin Hollins.

49ers: Nick Bosa, Javon Kinlaw, Arik Armstead, Samson Ebukam.

Advantage: Rams. This is close, but Donald is one of the greatest players of all time, and the duo of him and Floyd is superior to the duo of Bosa and Armstead.

LINEBACKERS:

Rams: Bobby Wagner, Ernest Jones, Travin Howard.

49ers: Azeez Al-Shaair, Fred Warner, Dre Greenlaw.

Advantage: 49ers. Wagner is a big upgrade to a linebacker unit that was among the league's worst before he signed with the Rams. The 49ers still have the best linebacker group in the league, though.

DEFENSIVE BACKS:

Rams: CB Jalen Ramsey, CB David Long Jr., NCB Troy Hill, FS Jordan Fuller, SS Taylor Rapp.

49ers: CB Charvarius Ward, CB Emmanuel Moseley, NCB Samuel Womack, FS Jimmie Ward, SS Talanoa Hufanga.

Advantage: Rams. The Rams have no question marks in their secondary, plus they have future Hall of Famer Jalen Ramsey, who can play every defensive back position at an elite level. In comparison, the 49ers have two question marks in their secondary and zero future Hall of Famers.

FINAL SCORE

49ers: 2.

Rams: 4.

There's a reason the Rams just won the Super Bowl -- they're really freaking good. But the 49ers can pass them if Trey Lance outplays Stafford and the offensive line exceeds expectations.

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Published
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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