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The San Francisco 49ers won their 2019 regular-season opener. That has to feel good, right? The team is happy to be headed into Week 1 with a 1-0 record, but it was the defense that starred during Sunday's outing. The unit carried the team to the 31-17 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The offense ... well, it struggled. It struggled to get into a rhythm, and it struggled to be as productive as most hoped it to be this season. The players on that offense know there is still work to be done and hope for a better outing against the Cincinnati Bengals.
"There's a lot of things to work on, definitely," tight end
George Kittle told reporters on Thursday. "Three touchdowns called back on penalties. You can't do that if you want to win. We got bailed out by our defense, I think. I think everyone said that.
"We're just going to try to focus on the little things because I think that's what we missed out on, a lot of little things, whether it's alignments, some holding calls. If we can just clean those up, I think that we're a very dangerous team."
Tackle Joe Staley was equally disappointed in the offense's Week 1 performance.
"As an offense, last week, we felt we weren't the reason we won that game," Staley said. "Our defense obviously played really well. We were pretty disappointed in the way we played offensively. We left a lot of points out there on the field. We had a couple of unfortunate penalties at inopportune times. It took away a couple of touchdowns for us.
"As far as in our O-line room, up front, did some good things, especially in pass protection, but our run game wasn't there."
As for Jimmy Garoppolo, Kittle believes his quarterback is confident in the pocket and how he delivers the football to his targets.
"He's looked good all week," Kittle said of Garoppolo. "We're looking forward to it. We've got red-zone (drills) tomorrow, and get it [clicking] a little bit more there, and score some more touchdowns."
Kittle added that the goal is to win all their games this season. That's what the 49ers are focused on moving forward.
"Most NFL teams don't win 16 games," Kittle said. "We're going to do our best to try to do that. That's our goal. We're just going to try to win them all."
The nice thing is that, despite some obvious struggles, the players never lost confidence on the sideline against the Buccaneers, even later in the game.
"There was no panic on the sideline," Staley said. "Our defense was rolling, feeling really good. Offensively, we were just kind of talking. We got the ball back with about five minutes left, obviously, at the end of the game right there.
"We were saying, 'Just one more drive.' We didn't care what we'd done so far. We just needed one more drive, get some first downs, get the ball moving. We were able to do that, and get some points on the board, get a field goal.
"I think that's one of the reasons we won. There was no panic, our defense was playing incredibly well, and we were playing team football."
It's already confirmed that the San Francisco 49ers will kick off their 2024 regular season at home against the New York Jets on "Monday Night Football." However, that Week 1 matchup won't be the only time head coach Kyle Shanahan's team takes the spotlight on Monday night.
Joe Buck disclosed on "Good Morning America" that ESPN and ABC have scheduled a second matchup featuring the Niners.
When discussing additional matchups beyond the debut game, Buck mentioned, "We know that we also have the Cowboys twice, and we've got the Chiefs twice. We've got the Bills twice. We've got another date with the
The NFL will unveil the league's 272-game 2024 schedule tonight at 5:00 p.m. PT. It is common for select week-to-week opponent matchups to leak before the official announcement. I've created this tracker to collect those leaks as the official schedule release time approaches.
As usual, the San Francisco 49ers will face each NFC West team twice. They will also play against the division champions from the NFC East, NFC South, and AFC West: the Dallas Cowboys, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Kansas City Chiefs, respectively. The 49ers-Chiefs game will be a rematch of Super Bowl 58. Additionally, the Niners are scheduled to play every team from the AFC East and the NFC North.
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The NFL schedule has been released and the San Francisco 49ers now know when and where they will play each regular season game. The divisional games are always important. You want to win your division above all else.
But the 49ers also have some important non-divisional games. Some of these games very well could play a part in NFC postseason seedings. Because of this, I've chosen three NFC games as the top non-divisional games for the 49ers. These are the five most important non-divisional games for the 49ers—the games that could play the biggest role in whether or not San Francisco wins a Super Bowl.
RELATED: Complete 2024 San Francisco 49ers Schedule
Last season was frustrating for anyone covering the San Francisco 49ers, as it meant missing out on family activities due to the team playing games on Thanksgiving night and Christmas night. Although the Christmas night game was less burdensome because most family activities were done by then.
Additionally, the team played on New Year's Eve, although it was a morning game, making it less of an issue.
However, for fans, it must have been enjoyable to mix holiday activities, such as stuffing your face with turkey, with watching a 49ers game. The 2024 NFL schedule is expected to be released this week. While the date has yet to be officially announced, reports point to a potential
