INGLEWOOD – The NFL’s trade deadline isn’t until Tuesday at 1 p.m., PDT. But it’s fair to suggest that San Francisco 49ers’ general manager John Lynch may have already won it.
The moment the 49ers pried Christian McCaffrey from the Carolina Panthers Oct. 21 for second-, third- and fourth-round picks in 2023 and a fifth-rounder in 2024, the balance of power in the NFC West seemed to tilt toward Santa Clara. That, in turn, was the story of the 49ers’ latest punking of the Rams Sunday, 31-14, before a SoFi Stadium crowd that, as usual, featured lots of people wearing red.
For the Rams, this vision was the scariest thing to come out of Halloween weekend: McCaffrey running, catching and throwing – yes, throwing – for touchdowns while accounting for 173 all-purpose yards, while the Rams’ mishmash of running backs accounted for a paltry 56 yards total.
McCaffrey more than made up for the injury that sidelined Deebo Samuel, normally the Rams’ main irritant. And he also picked this game against the 49ers’ traditional rival to do something that hasn’t been done in the NFL in 17 seasons, the catch/run/throw scoring triple. The first two are expected, but when he threw a 34-yard strike to Brandon Aiyuk in the end zone for the 49ers’ first points in the second quarter, that turned out to be historic. Only 11 players in NFL history have done so, the last the Chargers’ LaDainian Tomlinson at Oakland on Oct. 16, 2005.
So this was rare territory McCaffrey occupied Sunday. And if Rams’ general manager Les Snead had reason to wince while watching a guy he’d also tried to acquire in the process of tormenting his team, he had even more reason to wince at his own team’s running game.
It was lousy.
The starting back Sunday was Ronnie Rivers, a practice squad promotion who had played at Fresno State, was undrafted last spring and was on his third organization, having been cut by Arizona in training camp and previously cycled through Seattle’s practice squad.
He had 21 yards in eight carries. Darrell Henderson Jr. had 16 in four carries, Malcolm Brown had 10 in five carries, and Cooper Kupp had just as many in two carries in addition to his normal receiving duties.
That’s absolutely not going to cut it going forward, and at 3-4 the Rams are in a situation where they need help quickly to stay afloat in what is still a winnable division.
The running game is “obviously a point of emphasis,” Kupp said. “You never want to be one-dimensional. Being able to hand the ball off and be efficient, there’s lots of ways to do that too. It’s not always about just handing the ball to the running back. There’s ways to get around the edge, and we saw that a little bit with some of the fly sweep stuff … some of the little things you can do that are just extensions of the run game as well.
“Make guys come up and tackle, make plays. We got to do a better job at that. And point blank, we have to do a better job running the ball. There’s no getting around that either.”
Could Cam Akers have made a difference? We’ll never know, because of whatever the 2020 second-round pick did to make himself persona non grata with the Rams. He hasn’t been around the team since Oct. 13, the Wednesday before the Rams played the Panthers (and, coincidentally, McCaffrey) and what was originally described as missing practice for “personal reasons” turned out to be code for “you’re gone.” Sean McVay ultimately came right out and said the Rams would try to trade Akers, so if there is a deal to be had in the next two days he’ll likely be going the other way.
There are running backs out there, but the price for an Alvin Kamara or a Kareem Hunt, for example, probably will be at least as steep as what the 49ers paid for McCaffrey, even with the assumption that there will be more baggage attached to either of those players.
(Then again, we thought there would be baggage attached to Odell Beckham Jr. when he came to the Rams last year. That should be a lesson: Never assume.)
McVay was asked if the Rams need to acquire a running back this week and he said no, noting that the running game isn’t “exclusively on the running back … The reason we didn’t run the football efficiently wasn’t because of our backs, in my opinion.”
That puts the onus on an offensive line still trying to regain some semblance of order and consistency. And there was a disconnect Sunday between the first half, and the Rams’ two long scoring drives, and a second half of four punts and one end-of-game possession with the game no longer in doubt.
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(That last possession, incidentally, featured Kupp coming off after a 49er had rolled up on his ankle. Kupp said afterward he felt he’d be fine, but if you detected a little bit of fright among the Rams when he was being tended to, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Right now, he’s as close as they have to a dual threat.)
It’s worth noting that when McCaffrey was here two weeks ago with a Carolina team that is now 2-6, he had 158 combined rushing/receiving yards in a 24-10 Rams win. Ignoring Sunday’s touchdown pass for a second, the only difference between McCaffrey the Panther and McCaffrey the 49er is that better teammates allowed him to have more of an impact.
“I thought he was still a dynamic player in both instances,” McVay said. “You can see it. He’s very comfortable with some of the different things they were asking of him. I thought Kyle did a great job of being able to utilize him.
“They had good, sound schemes and they did a good job. And he’s an excellent football player.”
You think he would have fit in well here? Again, we’ll never know.
jalexander@scng.com