49ers vs. Rams Week 1: Brock Purdy and Mike Evans Rout Los Angeles 27-7 in the NFL's First Australia Game

The 49ers treated Melbourne like a study-abroad semester. The Rams treated it like a layover. By the second half, you could tell which team had actually adjusted its body clock.

Final: 49ers 27, Rams 7. In the first regular-season NFL game ever played in Australia, in front of 100,021 fans at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Brock Purdy threw touchdown passes to three different receivers, Mike Evans scored in his San Francisco debut, and a defense now led by longtime Rams coordinator Raheem Morris held the league's best offense from last season to one touchdown. Kickoff was 10:35 on a Friday morning in Melbourne, which was 8:35 p.m. ET on Thursday back home, and only one sideline looked fully awake for it.

Twenty-Four Unanswered, Built the Hard Way

San Francisco set the tone with a 15-play, 65-yard opening march that ate 7:13 and ended in an Eddy Pineiro chip shot from 20 yards. The Rams answered with their one real highlight of the day: Matthew Stafford hit Puka Nacua for 41 yards, and Kyren Williams punched in a 5-yard run on the first play of the second quarter, the first touchdown in an Australian NFL game.

Then things got sloppy. Quentin Lake picked off a Purdy throw meant for George Kittle, and Renardo Green returned the favor on the very next series, picking off a Stafford deep ball for Nacua at the San Francisco 14 on third-and-10. Rookie Kaelon Black chewed up yardage on the ground, and Purdy capped a nine-play, 86-yard drive by finding former Ram Demarcus Robinson on a 39-yard post for a 10-7 halftime lead.

The second half was a slow-motion takeover. Deebo Samuel's 45-yard kickoff return opened it, Christian McCaffrey ripped off runs of 14 and 16 yards, and Purdy lofted a 2-yard fade to Evans over new Rams cornerback Jaylen Watson. Seventeen to seven.

Purdy Spread It Around, Warner Made History

Purdy finished 25 of 34 for 205 yards, three touchdowns and one pick, and he wasn't sacked once. The 49ers say he completed passes to eight different receivers and became the first San Francisco quarterback to throw three or more touchdowns in a Week 1 game since Colin Kaepernick in 2013. It wasn't a fireworks show. It was a surgeon with a really good playlist.

Evans caught six of seven targets for 49 yards and the score, and by halftime he already looked like Purdy's security blanket. “Brock threw a great ball,” Evans said of the touchdown. “We actually repped that a lot the last couple of weeks, so I was happy it paid off.”

The run game did the heavy lifting in between. McCaffrey went for 68 yards on 10 carries, and Black added 65 on 14 in his NFL debut, the most rushing yards by a 49ers rookie in a debut since Elijah Mitchell in 2021. The team total: 174 rushing yards.

Then there's Fred Warner, who came back from an ankle injury that cost him time in 2025 and made 11 tackles, forced a fumble and passed Hall of Famer Patrick Willis for the most tackles in franchise history. “Fred means everything to me,” Kyle Shanahan said.

Inches at the 1, Then 99 Yards the Other Way

The Rams had one real shot late in the third. They drove 72 yards in 12 plays to the San Francisco 2, and on third down Nacua was marked down just shy of the goal line. On fourth-and-goal from the 1, Stafford tried a quarterback sneak and ran straight into Osa Odighizuwa. The replay official upheld the call.

Instead of a three-point game, the 49ers took over at their own 1 and went 99 yards in 11 plays, with Purdy scrambling for 18 and 8 along the way before hitting Samuel for a 15-yard touchdown and a 24-7 lead. That's not a goal-line stand. That's a plot twist with a sequel attached.

Early in the fourth, Warner punched the ball out of Tyler Higbee's hands, Keion White recovered, and Pineiro drilled a 56-yarder. Game over, even with Pineiro clanging a later 52-yard try off the upright.

“Probably only had two good drives, to be honest,” Stafford said. “Not enough good stuff on offense.”

Numbers From Down Under

• 100,021: The crowd at the MCG, the seventh-largest for a regular-season game in NFL history.
• 0: Sacks allowed by San Francisco on Purdy's 34 pass attempts.
• 7 of 12 vs. 2 of 9: Third-down conversions, 49ers vs. Rams.
• 4: Straight international wins for the 49ers, which the team says is the longest active streak in the league.

The Rams Have a Week of Uncomfortable Questions

This is the kind of opener that writes the week's talk radio for you. The 49ers flew in a week early, won over the locals and played like a team that had acclimated. The Rams didn't leave California until kickoff was under 48 hours away, and Sean McVay knows exactly how that looks now.

“I know there’s gonna be a lot of narratives that appropriately put the blame on me, and then we’ll move forward the right way,” McVay said. “I don’t believe (the travel plan) is why we didn’t play well enough. I really don’t.”

The bigger worry might be the roster. Stafford, the reigning MVP, went 15 of 25 for 155 yards with no touchdowns. Myles Garrett, the reigning AP Defensive Player of the Year, didn't record a tackle in his Rams debut and admitted his knee isn't fully right. “This was the worst version of myself that I’ve put out there, and I’ve got to be better,” Garrett said.

San Francisco, meanwhile, owns an early division win and heads home for a Sept. 20 opener against Miami. The Rams host the Giants on Monday, Sept. 21.

The Exchange Students Aced the Final

Mike Evans put the whole trip in one line. “It was definitely worth it to come a little bit early,” he said. Shanahan said the MCG “felt gladiator-ish,” then added, “It felt like home once we got here. I'm glad the guys played like it, too.”

The 49ers showed up early, learned the neighborhood, made friends with the locals and then aced the final exam. The Rams caught the last flight in and sat for the test anyway. Some lessons you only have to learn once.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Postgame quotes as reported by the Associated Press and 49ers.com.