By Gus "Walk-Off" Fields
MELBOURNE — More than 100,000 people packed the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday, and by the time it was over, most of them were watching the wrong team celebrate. The San Francisco 49ers throttled the Super Bowl-favorite Los Angeles Rams 27-7, turning what was supposed to be a showcase for Sean McVay's club into a rout in front of the biggest crowd many of these players will ever see.
The pregame storyline was travel. San Francisco flew to Australia nearly a week early; Los Angeles arrived the day before kickoff. Afterward, both head coaches waved it off as the deciding factor. "I didn't think it factored into the game," Kyle Shanahan said, a sentiment McVay echoed even in defeat, according to ESPN's account of the postgame remarks.
Whatever the cause, the Rams never found rhythm. Pass rusher Myles Garrett, playing his first game since arriving in a trade, went without a single tackle — a performance he did not sugarcoat afterward. "The worst version of myself that I've put out there," Garrett told reporters, adding that he wasn't fully right physically.
For the Niners, the lopsided scoreline in a country that rarely sees NFL football was itself the story: a Super Bowl contender dismantled a Super Bowl favorite on a cricket ground half a world from home. The travel debate will linger through the week regardless of what the coaches say — but for one night in Melbourne, the box score did the talking.
— Compiled from reporting by BBC Sport and ESPN.
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