Week 1 of the regular season has finally come for the 113th season in SodenBowl and the San Francisco 49ers are traveling to Motor City to face off against the Detroit Lions.
After a subpar 1-3 preseason that saw its fair share of ups and downs, the 49ers are looking toward the regular season and hoping to kick it off right with a win in Week 1. And that’s looking like a tall order for the 49ers, as the Lions stormed the preseason with wins in all three of their games.
The Lions finished the preseason 5th in passing and in points scored. All their receivers got in on the action, as they had 3 different WR’s and TE Hockenson finishing with more than a hundred yards.
The 49ers defense is going to have their hands full trying to slow down the Lions potent passing game. The 49ers have shown that they can play well against the pass, as they were 8th in defensive passing yards allowed and 6th in total yards allowed in the preseason. The team is looking at rookie CB Antonio Hanks to help limit the yards, by staying on the hip of his fellow rookie, Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown. The trio of LB Fred Warner, LB Dre Greenlaw, and LB Keith Murray Jr, who was recently acquired via trade that sent veteran DE Arik Armstead to the LA Chargers, is expected to help with defending the pass, while also trying to limit RB D’Andre Swift and the Lions running game. The team is also looking to DE Nick Bosa and the rest of line to carry on without Armstead, and to contribute to containing the run, while pressuring Lions QB Jarrod Goff and making sure he doesn’t have enough time to pick the secondary apart.
The 49ers offense going to the regular season is still a mystery. At the start of the preseason, the team was certain that veteran signal caller QB Jimmy Garoppolo would lead the team throughout the regular season, while rookie QB Trey Lance held the clipboard on the sideline to learn under the veteran. However, the rookie showed a lot of promise in the preseason as he put up nearly identical numbers as his mentor. Because of this, it is still unclear whether the team will once again go with Garoppolo this season, or if it’s time to hand the reins over to Lance. Either way, the 49ers plan to lean on their running game heavily to help open up the passing game. The 49ers seemed to have struck gold with 6th round rookie RB Elijah Mitchell. With an impressive preseason, he has earned at least a 50% timeshare with veteran RB Raheem Mostert, while fellow rookie RB Trey Sermon rounds out the rotation with his bruising style of running.
With only hours left before the regular season kicks off for the 49ers, the 49er fans are anxious to see what their team can do this season and are hoping that Week 1, which will be featured on SNYPZ TV (Broadcast – 9:15pm EST: https://www.twitch.tv/snypztelevision), starts off the season on a good note.