When you watch a game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams, you can’t help but feel like you’re actually watching a particularly strange episode of the Twilight Zone.
We’re not talking about a rivalry here, folks. No, a rivalry is Cal and Stanford, Giants and Dodgers. Clean hatred, clear lines.
This? This is something a shrink needs to untangle.
Psychologists do have a name for this relationship between the Rams and 49ers: the Chameleon Effect. Kyle Shanahan and Rams head coach Sean McVay nonconsciously (I think) mimic each other — postures, mannerisms, assistant coaches, players, and plays. Everything.
These two even have the same team-building model.
Yes, the NFL is a copycat league, but this is on a whole other level. And, unsurprisingly, when the Rams and 49ers get together, things get weird.
Doppelganger weird.
Going into this Week 10 matchup at Levi’s Stadium, everything points to the banged-up, just-trying-to-survive 49ers getting their teeth kicked in by a Rams team that has kicked into hyperdrive in the last three weeks, outscoring opponents by a margin of 86 to 20.
But you know what? Logic finds no quarter when these two teams face off against each other.
This matchup, effectively a far-too-early elimination game for the NFC West title, has stakes that are much, much higher. Forget the standings. This is the biannual — ahem — manhood-measuring contest for Shanahan and McVay. It’s a mix of chess, poker and Chutes-and-Ladders — a dizzying, circular showdown of the two sharpest minds in the game.
They’re close friends, archenemies, and they deploy their 48-man game day rosters as proxies in their never-ending battle of “I know that you know that I know.”
So, yes, the Rams have the better 48 this time around. No one but the most ardent homers has picked the Niners (and even they seemed hesitant). And I’m not saying the Niners are going to win.
But amid all the takes and analysis, I have seen many fail to factor in the all-important Shanahan Factor. He always keeps his most unexpected, most devastating wrinkles reserved just for McVay. He might treat these games like just another NFL game with the media, but deep down, he relishes them and treats them with just a bit more reverence.
We saw it back in Week 5, when the 49ers, a team already resembling a MASH unit, went down to L.A. on a short week and stole a victory through sheer trickery and confusion.
The Rams didn’t expect Mac Jones and Kendrick Bourne to drive the 49ers offense up and down the field with slant and over routes.
And they certainly didn’t see the Niners ripping off the Rams’ Cover 6 defense for the week and conceding the outside zone run in an effort to sell out to stop McVay’s favorite run play, an interior run called Duo. It caught the Rams off guard — their entire game plan was thrown off until they made some late first-half adjustments. (That adjustment? Relentlessly attacking rookie safety Marques Sigle with deep passes.)
It proved not to be enough – the Niners snuck out of the Southland with a win.
Shanahan and his defensive coordinator, Robert Saleh, have magician-deep sleeves this season. We’re only in Week 10 — just past the season’s halfway point — but it’s fair to wonder if there’s another trick up hiding in there.
But if there is, it’s coming out on Sunday. Shanahan doesn’t hold back against McVay.
If there isn’t, the Niners’ chances of winning the NFC West will likely go up in smoke.
The Rams and Seahawks are playing at a Super Bowl level right now. The Niners are clearly not at that caliber and might not reach it at all, thanks to the team’s ever-growing injury report.
But a win over the Rams keeps the NFC West dream alive for the Niners. Not only would a season sweep give them a tiebreaker over L.A. — and a 4-0 start in the division — it would also jump the Niners over the Rams in the standings.
The Seahawks will have to wait until Week 18, if the Niners can survive long enough to make that game relevant for the division.
Does it make any sense to suggest that this Niners team can still win this game or this division? Not at all.
But this is the enduring, beautiful absurdity of this matchup: What does sense have to do with 49ers-Rams, anyway?
My brain says the Rams win in an onslaught, 33-21, but here’s my real prediction, and it’s the easiest one I’ll make all season: Let chaos reign.