The San Francisco 49ers have been on a roll to start the season, going 4-0 with wins over the Los Angeles Rams, Miami Dolphins, Arizona Cardinals, and Denver Broncos. After an elite offense carried the way through the first three weeks, it was San Francisco’s defense that looked great on Sunday, holding Denver’s offense to just 14 points in a hard-nosed, physical game.
Offensively, things took a while to get going for the 49ers, but one unit has remained quite underrated so far this season: the offensive
line. San Francisco’s offensive line has still yet to allow a sack, and that continued against a very quality defense.
A part of that is Brock Purdy and his ability to extend plays. But one thing I’ve noticed is that Purdy has more trust in his offensive line than he’s had in previous years. The star quarterback isn’t bailing clean pockets as much, and can do what he does best: process and go through his progressions.
Heading into the game, the 49ers knew what kind of style they wanted to play against the Broncos, and it eventually led them to victory.
“I think the whole team just bought into the type of game that we thought it was going to be,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said. “We thought it was going to be a real physical game that we really wanted to control the ball and run the ball well on offense. We really thought the defense and teams would have to play a certain way to allow us to do that, and they did a ton. Especially us not converting those short yardages in the first half.
“Would have been easy to get away from it if those guys weren’t playing like that, but they were playing so hard and playing so physical and not giving up big plays and keeping the score low allowed us to keep playing that style until it eventually broke them, we felt, and gave us some big plays there in the fourth quarter.”
After the game, Shanahan gave a lot of praise to his front five, even acknowledging he didn’t expect this level of success so far.
“That says a lot, especially versus that front,” Shanahan said about his offensive line’s ability to protect Brock Purdy. “They’re a really good pass rush team. Says a lot that we were able to run the ball so much too, so we could stay balanced and not let them be one-dimensional. I thought Brock did a good job avoiding some too, and just collectively. It starts with the O-Line, but collectively it’s been a huge deal and definitely wasn’t expecting to do that all the way up until now.”
While the 49ers weren’t very efficient running the ball, they were able to get to the 35-run mark, slowly churning away against a tough defense.
What has led to the level of play we’ve seen so far? It starts with having somewhat of a ‘crazy’ mentality going into games, according to Trent Williams.
“I think everybody in the locker room goes through those times where you’ve got to be a little bit, I guess, for lack of a better word, crazy, in a sense to where you’ve got to believe that you’re the best,” Williams said about his offensive line. “You’ve got to believe you have the best o-line. You’ve got to believe you have the best defensive line whether that’s true or not.
“It’s the belief and the confidence that allows you to play like you can be that. I’ve always thought we had the talent to be one of the best o-lines in the league. I always say I thought Colton [McKivitz] and myself were probably the best pair of tackles in the league. With the way Dom (Dominick Puni) has been playing, obviously Jake [Brendel] has always been real solid for us, the heart and soul of our o-line. Connor [Colby] taking that big step, that’s probably when you reference the question. I understand it’s left guard, but we always had faith in him. He has the attributes to be really successful. We’ve seen that his rookie year and now he’s putting on film.”
The 49ers still have areas to grow offensively, and we saw that a bit on Sunday. But their trench play has been quite good to start the year, and that’s a great sign for a hopeful contender.
