1. With both teams coming off bad losses – and everything going on in SF – is the short week to prep a good or bad thing?
I think it’s a good thing. As a player, you want to focus on football and you want to focus on getting back to work. When you’re struggling the way that San Francisco has the last couple of weeks, the best thing to do is have another game and get back on the field. The only negative is the health of the team, but from a mental standpoint you’d much rather get back out on the field and try to remove the bad taste from your mouth.
2. Why is Colin Kaepernick looking ordinary all of a sudden?
First and foremost, teams have had the opportunity to study all off-season on how to defend the read-option and how to defend him. Last year, if you remember, he started only seven games in the regular season, so teams didn’t really have a lot of time during the season to make those adjustments. Now teams have had an entire off-season, and because of that, he’s completing fewer passes, his percentage is down, his interceptions are up, his sacks are up. It’s not necessarily things that he’s doing wrong, it’s teams making adjustments on how to defend what he does as a quarterback. How he responds to that and how the offense responds is part of the growth process you go through to succeed in the NFL.
3. Is this a must-win game for both teams?
I think it’s very important because it’s a divisional game and neither team wants to start 1-3, but I think it probably has a little more weight on the 49ers than it does St. Louis. The Rams are the youngest team in the NFL, so they know there are going to be growing pains. They are trying to build for the future, whereas San Francisco is really built to have success now – especially coming off of last year’s Super Bowl appearance. Overall, I think it’s more pressing for San Francisco to get a win, but it’s still pretty early to call it a must-win.
– Trent Green
Ian Eagle, Trent Green and sideline reporter Laura Okmin will have all the action from St. Louis tonight as the Rams host the San Francisco 49ers. Coverage begins at 8PM Eastern on WestwoodOne Sports.
