49ers' championship aspirations rekindled after dominating rival Rams

The San Francisco 49ers are set up for a second-half run after a convincing 31-14 victory over their hated rival, the Los Angeles Rams.

You likely don't need me to tell you that McCaffrey's performance was one for the record books. Yet it bears repeating.

He became the fourth player since the 1970 merger to run, throw, and catch a touchdown in a single game. Racking up 146 yards and two scores on 26 touches as a runner and receiver, he added 34 yards passing thanks to a gorgeous deep throw to a wide-open Brandon Aiyuk.

Jimmy Garoppolo was ruthlessly efficient and had perhaps his best game ever as a pro. He finished with 235 yards and two touchdowns on 21-of-25 passing. Both his touchdown throws were the result of high-level quarterbacking rarely seen in recent years.

The touchdown pass to McCaffrey was gorgeous to me, because Garoppolo didn't lose his cool inside a chaotic pocket, read the field and, on his fifth read, found the running back with an excellent touch pass over the top of nearby defenders.

Later, in the fourth quarter, Garoppolo and George Kittle put a dagger in the heart of the Rams. Rolling out to his left on a designed bootleg, Jimmy fired a dart into the back of the end zone where only Kittle could come down with it. The location was excellent here, and it highlights just how "on" Garoppolo was on Sunday.

Now, Jimmy G got real lucky a couple of times, too. Even in the midst of his masterpiece, Garoppolo fired off a couple of inexplicably bad balls. In particular, the ball he threw at Jalen Ramsey's face on 2nd-and-9 early in the third quarter -- a ball Ramsey had in his hands no less than three times before ultimately botching the interception -- was bonkers.

After punting the ball away, the 49ers finally mustered a third-down stop after allowing six straight conversions. That led to a stunning sequence that sealed the game away: San Francisco's offense caught fire, scoring three touchdowns in a row, and its defense responded in kind.

The dropped interception by Ramsey was but one of a few pivotal moments of the game. Tyler Higbee's drop early in the fourth quarter probably cost the Rams a touchdown. Christian McCaffrey fumbled twice, and if not for Ray-Ray McCloud being Johnny-on-the-spot while laying on the ground things could have worked out a whole lot differently than they did.

Football is like that, though. That's why there are people in the analytics community who track things like fumble recovery luck and dropped interceptions. Garoppolo and the 49ers got extremely lucky on Sunday on a number of occasions:

Luck had nothing to do with the turnaround we witnessed from the 49ers on defense, however.

The first half of football was pretty frustrating for Nick Bosa and Co. The Rams were intent on bleeding them dry with a steady diet of screens. Stafford barely got touched in the first two quarters (one single pressure on 22 attempts). He led two long scoring drives in a row at one point, keeping his offense on the field for 26 plays and 14 minutes, 56 seconds of game clock during that stretch.

The second half was another story altogether. The Rams could do absolutely nothing after the 49ers finally got their third-down stop at the nine-minute mark of the third quarter. In their final four offensive possessions, the Rams managed to get off just 17 plays, gaining 11 yards of offense.

After the game, Bosa talked about what it took to affect such a drastic change:

"We had to come in at halftime and realize it's that type of game and we're not going to get after (Stafford) until we get after the screens and the play action stuff," Bosa told reporters after the game (h/t David Lombardi of The Athletic). "Once we figured that out, we shut them down."

The adjustments made at halftime by DeMeco Ryans and his defense are what excite this football nerd the most. For most of two-and-a-half games (Atlanta, Kansas City, and first half of Los Angeles), Ryans had been on the losing side of the play-calling battles.

Then, it all came together.

The Rams aren't the Chiefs. So let's not get too crazy about what happened. But what happened couldn't have come at a better time for this team.

Now at 4-4 on the season, the 49ers are in great shape to win the NFC West with a 3-0 record in their division. Looking ahead to Week 10, when they'll take on the Los Angeles Chargers, the 49ers are expected to get back a host of their starters.

My take on the 49ers ever since Trey Lance was injured is that they will win 10 games and the NFC West. Baked into that prediction is the expectation that Garoppolo will probably have two or three more really frustrating games in which he is a major reason the 49ers lost.

But if Garoppolo can play like he did on Sunday against the Rams the rest of the way, minus the hiccups, there is no telling just how good the 49ers can be.

Deebo Samuel and McCaffrey are basically interchangeable parts and can literally do anything you want. Brandon Aiyuk continues to evolve as a star, catching 21 balls for 246 yards and three touchdowns his last three games. George Kittle looks like himself again. Kyle Juszczyk is almost like having another Kittle.

Defensively, the loss of Emmanuel Moseley is proving to be quite costly, indeed. At this point, it's been hard to replace him, and it's caused a little bit if complication to the rest of the secondary. Jimmie Ward playing out of position is the biggest, most obvious illustration of this.

However, Jason Verrett should soon be back, and Deommodore Lenoir is playing fairly well in Year 2. Getting Dre Greenlaw back will be huge. He is without question one of the best linebackers in the league. If Arik Armstead can get healthy and stay healthy, the defensive line will also become a nightmare once again.

The season is long. So far it's been one heck of a roller-coaster ride. But with a two-week rest and a favorable schedule the rest of the way, the 49ers are still in the driver's seat to accomplish what they set out to do. This is a championship-caliber team that just needs to get lucky with health at the right time and avoid self-inflicted wounds.

The Quest for 6 is still within reach.