It’s the elephant in the room for both head coaches, who also happen to be longtime friends, as the 49ers visit the Rams on Sunday at SoFi Stadium.
The 49ers have eight consecutive regular-season wins over the Rams. For Rams head coach Sean McVay, the losing streak to his team’s NFC West rival has become more than an annoying pebble in his shoe.
For 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan, he’d rather not address his team’s streak, because he’d like it to continue.
“We have such a history, with the coaching staffs being similar for so long and the players being similar for so long,’’ Shanahan told reporters this week. “There’s a lot of new guys out there, them playing in one game and trying to figure out some of their new players that you don’t have a history with. But, once you turn on the tape and try to see it, yeah, you don’t know some of the guys, but you definitely know 99 [Rams defensive lineman Aaron Donald] and you know the quarterback [Matthew Stafford] and then you watch the schemes and nothing’s really different.
“It’s two really good schemes on both sides of the ball and two great players and looks very similar and the result was very similar with what they’ve had in the past.”
The only interruption in the 49ers’ dominance of the Rams came in Los Angeles’ 20-17 win over San Francisco in the NFC Championship game in January 2022.
“I think the biggest thing is they’ve been a great team,” McVay said this week of the 49ers. “It’s been challenging, and we’re going to do our best to come away with the result we’re hunting up. Every single week is a new entity. Every single year is a new year. One thing that hasn’t changed is they’re a great team again, and we’ve got a great challenge.”
The biggest challenge for the Rams will be figuring out how to beat 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, San Francisco’s 2022 seventh-round draft pick (the last pick in that draft), who hasn’t lost a regular season game yet.
Purdy passed for 220 yards and two touchdowns last Sunday in a 30-7 road win at Pittsburgh. He, too, rushed for 20 yards on three scrambles. He’s 6-0 in the regular season as a starter and became the first quarterback in NFL history to win his first six regular-season starts while throwing at least two TD passes in each game.
It was an impressive and encouraging start for Purdy, who spent months rehabbing his surgically repaired right elbow after an injury suffered in the NFC Championship loss at Philadelphia in January.
“Purdy shut some haters up,” 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa said after the game — Steelers veteran cornerback Patrick Peterson among them.
Peterson, an eight-time Pro Bowler who signed with the Steelers in the offseason, said before the game he respected Purdy’s play, but would still find a way to get his hands on the ball. Peterson instead was beaten twice for TDs by Brandon Aiyuk.
“It’s how you play quarterback at a high level,’’ Shanahan said of Purdy. “Where does that come from? Sometimes experience. Sometimes you’re just good at it. But he’s playing at a high level because he’s good at quarterback.”
Purdy utilized his skill-position players in Pittsburgh. Aiyuk caught eight passes for 129 yards and those two touchdowns, while running back Christian McCaffrey rushed for 152 yards and a touchdown.
For the 49ers, who started last season 1-2 and the previous season 2-4, the fast start was what they were seeking.
“It was exactly how we wanted to come out,” 49ers linebacker Fred Warner told reporters.
“My goal for the team was to play with the right intent,’’ Shanahan said. “How hard we went from the first play to the last play, I was really proud of our team in that way.’’
The Rams, who are coming off a disappointing 5-12 season and spent much of the offseason off-loading players because of salary-cap issues, won 30-13 at Seattle last week.
Stafford — playing without injured receiver Cooper Kupp, his favorite target — ripped Seattle’s secondary for his 58th career 300-yard passing game. He did so by utilizing rookie receiver Puka Nacua, who had 10 catches for 119 yards. Fellow receiver Tutu Atwell had a career-high 119 yards on six catches. Nacua has been dealing with an oblique injury and didn’t practice Thursday, leaving his status for Sunday in question.
The Rams amassed 27 first downs and 426 total yards on offense and 39:23 time of possession. It was an eye-opening performance based on the low expectations from the outside of the rebuilding Rams.
“I couldn’t care less what’s said outside,” McVay said. “There might be some change in narratives, and that doesn’t affect any way that we’ll go about our business right now.”
