Superteam. Unbeatable. Super Bowl bound.
These were all used to describe the all offseason, yet Week 1 proved why theres no such thing as a sure thing in the NFL.
The Rams faced their NFC West foe, the , in the NFLs first-ever game in Australia on Thursday night (or should we say, 10:35 a.m. local time at the Melbourne Cricket Ground) and were dominated in a 27-7 loss to begin the 2026 season.
Lets be clear: This is no slight to the 49ers, a team many believe will earn a playoff berth in a loaded division. Rather, the noise and astronomical expectations for the Rams made this Week 1 performance a shocker to say the least.
While the “overrated” talk has already begun for football fans on social media, the question must be asked: were the Rams right to fly to Melbourne less than two days before kickoff?
The Rams arrived in Melbourne on Thursday morning local time, with 28 hours until kickoff to begin their season. On the other hand, the 49ers spent close to a week getting adjusted to Melbourne time, practicing multiple times and making sure the team was ready to play a Friday morning game.
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The approaches were polar opposite, with the Rams arguing they still felt like they were on Los Angeles time, meaning kickoff to them felt like 5:35 p.m. PT on Thursday night.
“What gives me confidence is Im not going to really make it a big deal,” Rams coach Sean McVay said, via The Athletic, regarding the teams plan to fly so close to gameday. “Its, Hey, this is what the reality is. Weve got a long way to go, but lets be ready to rock when that three-hour window that were allotted comes.”
Both teams did their due diligence in terms of researching the best method and came to two completely different answers. The 49ers consulted sleep experts, coaches and anyone else they could find to see what would be best for the roster.
San Francisco knew the sleep conversation was coming. Considering this was only the NFLs first game in Australia and the league continues expanding its global reach, it wont be the last time franchises find themselves Down Under during the regular season.
“People are probably going to speculate after the game, Well, this was better than the other,” 49ers offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak explained, via the outlet. “But, at the end of the day, were going to go out there to play.
“Its an unprecedented situation. We believe in the way were doing it. They believe in the way theyre doing it, and were going to play the game.”
It seemed pretty clear during these four quarters which team had the better way of doing things with this Australia game.
The 49ers came out buzzing and held that same intensity on both sides of the ball throughout the contest. Meanwhile, the Rams couldnt find their usual rhythm, especially the reigning MVP quarterback Matthew Stafford.
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Year 18 didnt begin the way he wanted, seeing just a handful of completions in the first half, though L.A. was only down by three points heading b
