Thursday, September 10th
San Francisco 49ers @ Los Angeles Rams, 8:35 PM ET
The second game of the 2026 season features a high-stakes NFC West matchup, and what is a bit neat here is that three of the four NFC West teams are in action in the first two games of the season. San Francisco and Los Angeles are two teams that are typically at the top or near the top of the NFL hierarchy.
The 49ers have dealt with a bit of a dramatic offseason, as they have seen some players struggle with injuries already, and this electrical substation theory is running rampant across social media. Based on how this offseason has done, you really wouldn't think that this team did win 12 games last year.
San Francisco is buried a bit in the NFC West, though, as the Seahawks just won the Super Bowl, and the Los Angeles Rams had what could turn into one of the best offseasons any team has had in the history of this league.
Since this is an NFC West game against two of the best offensive minds in football in Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay, it would be a massive shock if this game was not close. While the Rams are the better team and might be an entire tier better, the 49ers are going to hang around in this one.
It's also important to note that Week 1 games are notoriously odd sometimes. Even the best teams in the league are far from their finished product, so there will surely be some results that pan out this week that might have seen insane before the game began.
While that will happen across the 16 games to kickoff Week 1, it won't happen here, as I believe we'll see an unsurprising close Rams' victory.
Prediction: Los Angeles wins 27-23
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