The New York Giants paid a visit to Santa Clara for the 49ers’ home opener. While they put up a good fight, they were on match for the strong offense that is Brock Purdy, Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel and George Kittle.
The New York Football Giants have no place in San Francisco.
The San Francisco 49ers defeated the New York Giants 30-12 Thursday night. In doing so, the Niners became the first team to three wins and continued to look like a serious Super Bowl contender.
Let's dive into the analysis in more depth with five takeaways:
Giants are meh
The New York Giants have proven that they are better than the team that lost to the Dallas Cowboys 40-0 in Week 1, but they are still not likely to make the playoffs based on their play so far.
As impressive as their historic comeback was last week in their 31-28 win against the Arizona Cardinals, it was still against the Arizona Cardinals.
The Giants held their own at certain points in the game, but the 49ers dominated their opponent overall. Their offense stayed on the field for more than 38 minutes, as opposed to the Giants nearly 21. The 49ers had 26 first downs, the Giants 10.
This week's thrashing wasn't 40-0 nothing, but the Giants still did not look to be at the same level as the Super Bowl contending 49ers. The Giants will win some more games this year, but they don't look able to do better than that as of yet.
The 49ers missed Aiyuk in the red zone
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One of the few struggle areas for the 49ers Thursday night was their red zone offense. Out of their five red zone appearances, only two ended with a touchdown.
Wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk was out Thursday with a shoulder injury. Last week, Aiyuk had two touchdowns, both of which came from passes in the red zone.
QB Brock Purdy had a total of 12 incomplete passes Thursday night, and half of them came in the red zone. Purdy needs his reliable receiver back to catch those TDs.
For the 49ers, the magic number is 30
The 49ers are 3-0 this season, having one each game while scoring exactly 30 points.
Overall, the 49ers have outscored their opponents 90-42 and have strong weapons for both throwing and running the ball.
Overall, this offense is looking like a pretty good partner to their stellar defense.
Giants have next to no running game without Saquon Barkley
Barkley, who is now expected to miss several weeks with a high ankle sprain, sat out Thursday night as the Giants running game appeared to have been left in Arizona.
As a team, the Giants rushed for 29 yards. To be fair, the Giants offense did not have a great night, but even for a night when they scored 12 points the running game was nonexistent.
In his first two games, Barkley only rushed for a total of 114 yards. But the Giants only attempted 11 carries against the 49ers, which is less than the number of carries given to Saquon in each of his first two games.
With little run game, this Giants offense will struggle until Barkley returns.
Penalties may get in Niners' way
Penalties may have very well been the reason the Giants were ever even remotely in this game. The Niners had six penalties for 71 yards total. Including one passer interference on their own 8-yard line, leading to the Giants only touchdown.
In their first two games, the 49ers had six penalties each as well, giving up 55 and 60 yards respectively.
In close playoff games, penalties could make all the difference.
Coach Kyle Shanahan will be sure to stress this to his team in the weeks ahead.
