At 11-3, the San Francisco 49ers are in great shape to secure the No. 1 seed in the NFC, a first-round bye and home-field advantage on the path to the Super Bowl LVIII.
The Niners look like the NFL’s best team in 2023 …
… and could very well be one of the league’s best teams dating back to the early ’80s:
Not only that, the Niners are 18-0 when stars Brock Purdy, Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel all finish the game, dating back to last year.
As such, San Francisco is a 5.5-point favorite against Baltimore, the current No. 1 seed in the AFC. The two heavyweights face off against one another on Christmas Day at 8:15 p.m. So how can the Ravens beat the Super Bowl favorites on the road?
“The best way to beat them,” former Washington head coach Jay Gruden said on Glenn Clark Radio Dec. 18, “is to keep their offense on the sideline and do what Baltimore does, what they did to Jacksonville — have some 8- to 10- to 12-play drives, eat up some clock and try to wear them down and get them in the fourth quarter and get them like that, try to get after Purdy toward the end of the game. But if San Francisco plays with the lead, good luck, because it’s going to be very difficult to beat them.”
Former NFL safety Donte Whitner, who played for the Niners from 2011-2013, agrees with Gruden regarding the best way to attack San Francisco.
“They’re vulnerable in the run game. We saw that last week when the Arizona Cardinals went for over 200 yards rushing,” Whitner said on GCR Dec. 20. “They gave up five explosive runs for a total of 142 yards, so that’s where they’re vulnerable. We know that the Baltimore Ravens have the No. 1 rushing offense in the NFL, and it’s all led by Lamar Jackson, who gives every defense a tremendous amount of problems.”
However, the Ravens will have to control the clock without breakout running back Keaton Mitchell, the undrafted rookie who averaged 8.7 yards per touch in eight games before suffering a season-ending knee injury against the Jaguars on Dec. 17. Mitchell became the second back to go down for the year, following J.K. Dobbins (Achilles).
Power back Gus Edwards (663 rushing yards, 11 touchdowns) and third-down back Justice Hill (313, 3) will take on larger roles in the running game. Additionally, quarterback Lamar Jackson (741, 5) will continue to be the focal point of everything the Ravens do.
Gruden, now an analyst with The 33rd Team, doesn’t expect Edwards or Hill to duplicate Mitchell’s efficiency but believes the Ravens’ running game can remain on the right track.
“[The Ravens will] probably have to design some more quarterback runs for Lamar, and Gus will have to get more involved,” Gruden said. “Justice Hill is a good third-down back. He’s really good in protection. You can see they feel good about him on third down because he knows how to pick up the blitzes and all that, so it’s a drop-off but I think they’ll function.”
The Niners allowed 234 rushing yards in a 45-29 win against the Cardinals in Week 14. Running backs James Conner (86 yards) and Emari Demercado (64) led the way, but quarterback Kyler Murray ran for 49 yards on six carries as well, perhaps showing how Jackson can exploit San Francisco’s defense.
Whitner, now an NBC Sports Bay Area analyst, pointed out that the Niners were missing interior defensive linemen Arik Armstead (foot, knee) and Javon Hargrave (hamstring) for the Cardinals game. There’s a chance both are back for the Ravens game, according to head coach Kyle Shanahan.
However, San Francisco has plenty of talent up front even with those two players out, starting with stud edge rusher Nick Bosa (46 tackles and 10.5 sacks on the season).
“Bosa is starting to come into his own,” Whitner said. “Earlier in the season, he couldn’t get the consistency, the foot placement, the hand placement. The No. 1 thing about Nick Bosa isn’t his pass-rush moves. It’s the intensity and the effort that he continuously plays with where he just wears down tackles. At some point, a tackle is going to take a play off and Nick Bosa isn’t.”
Bosa and trade-deadline acquisition Chase Young should present a stiff challenge for Baltimore’s tackles, similar to the one posed by Jaguars edge defenders Josh Allen and Travon Walker a week ago. Ravens starting tackles Ronnie Stanley and Morgan Moses rotated with backups Patrick Mekari and Daniel Faalele in Jacksonville, and that may happen again if Stanley (concussion protocol) can play.
The best way to help out the tackles is to run the ball, according to Gruden.
“I don’t think anybody wants to … play the San Francisco 49ers and drop back and throw it 50 times a game because that’s a recipe for disaster right there, so you have to control the line of scrimmage,” Gruden said. “Hopefully the backup left tackle can hold his own. They’ll get Patrick Ricard out there, maybe get some two-tight-end sets and a fullback and try to dominate the line of scrimmage like they can do. I think that’s the biggest chance they have to win.”
For more from Gruden, listen to the full interview here:
For more from Whitner, listen to the full interview here:
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