49ers

Mac Jones led the 49ers to a critical 26-23 win over the Rams on Thursday Night with Brock Purdy out. Jones understands that he’s San Francisco’s backup quarterback, and Purdy will return to the starting role when he’s healthy. 

“They brought me here to play as a backup and that’s my job,” Jones said, via ProFootballTalk. “Brock’s the starter of this team, and right now he’s dealing with something, and for him to go out there last week and play when you know he probably wasn’t at full health, he cares about this team. So, I’m just trying to get some wins for him so it helps us down the line, and at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. I’ve been in his position, I’ve been a starter, and you want your backup to go in there and win, because at the end of the season, that could be the hit or miss between a playoff or not.”

Cardinals

The Cardinals’ rushing offense is currently ranked No. 22 in the NFL. Arizona HC Jonathan Gannon feels there are technical and schematic things they can change to open up their run game. 

“Yeah. The first step, pad level and pointing it the right way. You got some technique things that come up and some schematic things that come up. Off here or there a little bit, playing penalty free, so we just have to uptick everything that we’re doing to get the run game going,” Gannon said, via CardsWire. 

Gannon said they need to make better adjustments at the line of scrimmage. 

“No, that’s kind of talking to (the point) of making sure we’re pointing the right way. A lot of times; now I am going to get into it a little bit. We have to make sure that we’re all on the same page when we’re making calls at the line of scrimmage. That’s been good for us in the past. It’s not where it needs to be right now, but (it’s) very correctable. We do have to make sure that we don’t have unblocked players that we think we have accounted for that are not accounted for,” Gannon said. 

Arizona’s defense has also been fashed by several explosive plays this season. 

“To me and Nick, (who) I think thinks pretty similar to me, certain games (with) how you choose to defend you know you’re going to put your guys in some stressful downs, and you have to be OK with some. Other games, you’re trying to keep them all off the board. I’m not going to tell you how we’re going to defend this week, but I would say this: With explosive plays, I’m OK if the stress of the call—there’s situation, strength and stress of each call, right? When you’re calling it, what’s the strength, what’s the stress? If they find the stress for an explosive play sometimes you can live with some of those. If the strength of the call is to take away explosives and they generate explosives, I am not OK with that,” Gannon said. “Coming out of Seattle, I felt that happened too many times so that’s always something that we talk about and hang our hat on because we know that’s a stat that wins. I do think we have to do a better job of keeping the explosive play battle down as it relates to defense on that side of the ball. We have to do a better job. You can’t have a five-play drive that goes 70 yards and they score a touchdown. That’s not good defense, and he doesn’t call it accordingly like that. I think it’s self-inflicted explosives we have to minimize.”

Rams

Rams RB Kyren Williams committed a costly fumble near the end zone in Los Angeles’ 26-23 loss to the Rams on Thursday Night, while also getting stopped on 4th-and-1 in overtime. Williams feels like he “let the team down” in Week 5. 

“S—t sucks,” Williams said, via ProFootballTalk. “I don’t know. For me, I just got to hold onto the ball. I feel like I let the team down at the 1-yard line, not securing the one thing that matters and scoring the touchdown. So, for me, I put this all on me, honestly, and just knowing that I got to be better.”