Niners go back to who they are

The man on ESPN sounded as baffled as he was impressed: “They did not look like this last week.” He meant the 49ers, of course,

And to that observation we add, nor any week in the last year.

The Niners had gone 390 days since a win at Levi’s Stadium, their home. Then they played their patsies, the Los Angeles Rams.

We modify the cliché — let’s make it “on any given Monday.” On this Monday, the 49ers gave it to the Rams, winning 31-10, ending a streak of eight straight losses at Levi’s and continuing a streak of wins over the Rams, now six. 

There was a lot in print and on TV the past few days about the Rams, Hollywood’s team if you will, mostly for acquiring that receiver with the flair, flash and catchy name, Odell Beckham Jr., a.k.a. OBJ (yes, too many initials, but that’s our world). Headline stuff. OBJ, we were told, was the final piece in the puzzle, the guy who was going to get the Rams to the coming Super Bowl — which conveniently will be played at the Rams’ $5 billion SoFi Stadium.

OBJ may indeed help get the Rams to the NFL Championship, but he couldn’t do much about getting L.A. out of the pit in which he and the Rams found themselves in against San Francisco.

There are 60 minutes in a game. On Monday night, the Niners had the ball 39 minutes 3 seconds of those 60.

Hang on to the ball, pick off a couple of Rams passes (both by Jimmy Ward, one of which was returned for a touchdown, the infamous pick six) and you can’t lose.

“They went back to who they are,” said Louis Riddick, who analyzes for NBC Sports Bay Area.

Or who they were.

Maybe you missed the grumbling from fans and media because of the attention to OBJ — hard to ignore ESPN — but there was great disenchantment with the 49ers, beginning with head coach Kyle Shanahan.

A team that had been considered a probability for the postseason was 2-4 and at the bottom of NFC West.

And besides that, the Niners looked so awful against Arizona a week ago, one supporter emailed that he switched channels to some music program.

What to do? The old cure.

“We went back to basics,” said quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. Meaning plays that would succeed. Taking opportunities not chances.

Garoppolo, who gets his share of criticism, was effective, completing his first 12 passes and 15 of 19. When Deebo Samuel wasn’t catching the ball, he was running with it.

The Niners, perhaps as much in frustration as determination, pounded away. Woody Hayes, he of the three yards and a cloud of dust, would have been overjoyed.

It isn’t too much of a reach to say Shanahan was.

The Niners had 156 yards rushing, the Rams 52. Passing? The Rams had 226 to San Francisco’s 179. OBJ had two receptions for 18 yards.

You might say the Niners were fighting to keep their jobs.  What Shanahan would say was, “The whole team has to play that way, offense, defense, special teams.”

The game plan was simple — and brilliant. Keep the ball and keep the opponent off balance.

“The Rams are a real good team,” said Shanahan, “but we were excited to play them.” Given history, it’s easy to understand why.

“I think we took a lot of things personally,” said Shanahan. “We were very aware. We wanted to make the game as physical as possible. But our physical guys also have some skill sets.”

They can maneuver. They can think. They also can grasp the disappointment — disgust, even — engendered by going winless game after game on their home turf.

“There are no secrets to what we did,” said Garoppolo. “We were just locked in.”

After figuratively being locked out for 390 days.