Thursday Night Observations

Imagine you had no players going in a Thursday night game to kick off the NFFC playoffs. Imagine further you had the Rams +2.5 in your home picking pool’s quintuple week. How would you prefer the game to go? Exactly the way it went. No touchdowns, no QB over 200 yards, Cooper Kupp with zero! The only players that did anything were Puka Nacua, Kyren Williams, Isaac Guerendo and George Kittle, and what they did was modest by their standards and roles. Perfect game.

• The 49ers dominated the first half time of possession, the Rams the second. In the chess match between offensive masterminds, Sean McVay outfoxed Kyle Shanahan.

• Of course, the 49ers were already in position for a game-tying field goal with 5:20 left when Brock Purdy threw the catastrophic pick. When the Rams got the ball back, they wore down a tired 49ers defense to run clock and got the last field goal to go up six.

• Deebo Samuel’s third-quarter drop was huge — it would have been a first down and looked like he might have taken it to the house.

• Nacua and Williams always get theirs. Nacua will be a first-round pick next year, Williams early second. It’s amazing how Williams holds up under massive workloads running into the teeth of the defense and moves the pile at 5-9, 200 pounds. He has great wiggle to make the first defender miss too.

• The Rams at 8-6 are very much in contention for the division, the 49ers at 6-8 probably are done.