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‘It felt like a home game’: 49ers on fans’ Coliseum takeover

By

Jake Hutchinson

/

In an old, cavernous stadium, filled with 70-plus-thousand red seats, there was a red swarm. Thousands of 49ers fans, adorned in the same red of the seats in which they sat, overwhelmed the blue and gold of the Los Angeles Rams home fans.

The eye test alone told the story of a crowd which felt at most split between 49ers and Rams supporters (if not with an edge to the 49ers fans), and what emerged was much like a relic of football past; an old-style game you’d imagine watching in black-and-white, a performance apropos for the LA Memorial Coliseum. As the San Francisco defense brought color to that tape, terrorizing poor old Jared Goff and his woefully unequipped offensive line, the crowd supplied the ambience. The sound swelled, sometimes providing confusion.

When Robbie Gould knocked in an extra point, there was a moment of wondering whether he missed. The volume must have been from Rams fans cheering a mistake, right?

But it rarely ever was.

If you stripped off the blue bannering, and re-painted the field in red and gold, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a genuine home game for the 49ers. Every 49ers player asked about the energy—Jimmy Garoppolo, George Kittle, Richard Sherman, DeForest Buckner—said afterwards said it felt like a home game.

Said Garoppolo: “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

It was clear from the outset that this would be the case. As introductions were made, there was always a surplus of cheers outweighing the boos for 49ers players, and while Rams players introduced were paid their dues, there was a quietude which came over Rams fans in short order. It may have had something to do with the Rams’ 0-for-9 performance on third downs and 0-for-4 performance on fourth downs and a total offensive output of 165 yards.

As the 49ers’ defense enveloped the Rams, so too did the 49ers fans.

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