Recapping the San Francisco 49ers Dominant Week One Win Over the New York Jets

Written By Jesse Randall

9/10/24

Return To the Field After 212 Days

After 212 days, the San Francisco 49ers made their first appearance since the heartbreaking Superbowl loss. An offseason filled with drama, training camp holdouts, and reports that "the vibes were off" left many wondering how the 49ers would look in week one. The doubters were quickly hushed as the 49ers looked dominant throughout the game against what should be a playoff contender in the New York Jets.

Jordan Mason's Breakout Game

With plenty of storylines heading into the game, the biggest was the Christian Mccaffrey's Suprise inactive status less than an hour before kickoff. There was an overall feel from those familiar with the team that Jordan Mason would be able to fill in nicely during Christian's absence, but not even the most optimistic of the group expected the production we ended up seeing from Jordan. His angry running led him to a final stat line of 28 carries for 147 yards and 1 Touchdown against the Jet's third best rush defense in 2023. What makes this performance even more impressive is that He was running against a stacked box of 8 defenders or more on 50% of his runs. To put that into perspective all the other players in the league that finished with over 100 Rushing yards in week one ran against a stacked box at an average of 18.45%. Jordan showed that he is more than capable of taking some of the load off of Christian Mccaffrey's shoulders, especially as he continues to recover from Achilles tendonitis.

Unexpected Impressive Outing from the Offensive Line

The 49ers roster is absolutely loaded, but one of the few weak points of the team was supposed to be the offensive line outside of future hall of famer Trent Williams. This was not the case at all in their week one victory, in fact the dominance in the run game was what impressed the most. Trent Williams looked like his usual self, but rookie third round pick Dominick Puni looked like a future pro bowler. Puni was moving defenders in the run game all night and showed an impressive ability to get to the second level, making numerous blocks on Jets linebackers that sprang multiple big runs. In years past the 49ers found most of their success in their run game by running to the left behind Trent Williams but on this night, they actually found most of their success running behind Puni and Colton Mckivitz on the right side. Being able to have more of a balance then years past bodes extremely well for what was already one of the best running offenses in the NFL.

Suffocating Defensive Performance

The defense was extremely impressive, led by their first-year defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen. The unit was very good in 2023 but is hoping to improve on what was the 7th worst rushing defense in EPA/Play. They did exactly that on Monday night as they held the Jets running attack led by star running back Breece Hall to just 3.6 yards per rush, good for 6th best in week one. New additions Maliek Collins and Jordan Elliot made a huge impact in the run game, creating penetration throughout the night. Fred Warner was impressive as always, flying all around the field and punching out an early first quarter fumble recovered by Collins. The pass defense impressed as well with Deommodore Lenoir, and new addition Isaac Yiadom making splash plays. Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers didn't even think about looking Charvarius Ward's direction as he didn't attempt a single pass on his side of the field. The pass rush had one sack and a number of pressures as well, but Aaron didn't give them much of a shot getting the ball out quick at an average time to throw of only 2.52 seconds.

Brock Purdy With an Impressive Night

Brock Purdy didn't put up the impressive stat sheet that we have grown used to with only 231 yards and no touchdowns on the night, but he had a very impressive night. The team leaned mostly on their impressive rushing attack throughout the game, but when they asked Brock to make a play he came through. He connected with Jauan Jennings and Brandon Aiyuk on a number of third downs throughout the game to keep drives alive. He showed his usual superb accuracy and processing ability throughout the game and avoided making any real mistakes. His most impressive throw of the day ended as an incompletion, as he delivered a strike to the corner of the endzone just before the half, but Brandon Aiyuk was unable to hold on. Overall, Brock's performance showed that he should be in for another elite season before heading into contract negations this offseason.

Settling For Field Goals

One of the only negatives on the night for the San Francisco 49ers was their failure to capitalize on their scoring opportunities with touchdowns instead of Field Goals. After going three and out on their first possession, the 49ers offense went on to have 8 scoring drives in a row. Unfortunately, 6 of those ended with settling for field goals instead of finishing the drive with touchdowns. Luckily, their inability to make the most out of their scoring opportunities didn't hurt them much in this game, but they will be looking to improve on it throughout the season. Second year kicker Jake Moody put up a pretty impressive performance on the nights as he converted on all 6 of his field goal attempts.

Overall Takeaways from the Impressive Win

Ultimately, the 49ers looked extremely impressive in all faucets of the game in their Monday night win. Dominant wins don't come easy in the NFL and certainly not against a team that has the expectations of the New York Jets this year. Kyle Shanahan, has to be very pleased with his squads performance, and will be looking to keep up that dominance going into their matchup next week on the road against the Minnesota Vikings.