From John Breech at CBS
L.A. Rams (7-6) at San Francisco (6-7)
Thursday, 8:15 p.m. ET (Amazon Prime)
This isn’t a playoff game, but it’s going to kind of feel like a playoff game and that’s because the loser here won’t have much hope of making the postseason, especially if that loser is the 49ers. One year after getting to the Super Bowl, the 49ers season is teetering on the edge of collapse. I was going to blame their struggles on injuries, but they’re about to face the one team in the NFL that has had almost as many injuries as them, so I think we’ll just call things even on the injury front and move on.
The one thing about the 49ers is that I’m still not sure how good they are. For the most part, I feel like I can tell if a team is any good after FOURTEEN WEEKS, but with the 49ers, I still have no idea and that’s mostly because they’ve struggled to beat good teams. The 49ers have played a total of nine games this year against teams that currently have a winning record and they’ve gone 2-7 in those games and that includes a loss to the Rams back in Week 3.
The 49ers are already down to their third-string running back in Isaac Guerendo, but he’s dealing with a foot injury, which means they might be down to their fourth-string running back (Patrick Taylor, Jr.) on Thursday night. If you’re down to your fourth-string guy at any position, I don’t like your chances of winning.
The Rams have been a streaky team this year, but if there’s one thing you can almost always count on, it’s Matthew Stafford getting hot in December. We should call him Stafford Claus, because he delivers as often as Santa in December. Since being traded to the Rams in 2021, Stafford has started 11 games in the month of December and he’s gone 10-1 in those games and the only loss came in OVERTIME on the road against the Ravens last season. In those 11 games, Stafford has averaged 272.9 yards while throwing 24 touchdown passes compared to just six interceptions.
I think my point here is that you should never pick against Matthew Stafford in the month of December, a painful lesson that I learned last week when I picked the Rams to lose to the Bills.
The pick: Rams 27-24 over 49ers
Point spread prediction: Rams (+2)
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