2025 Week 2: 49ers @ Saints Review
Game Review: 49ers vs. Saints
The San Francisco 49ers traveled to New Orleans to take on the Saints, who lost in a close contest against the Arizona Cardinals 20-13 in Week 1, hoping to bounce back.
With quarterback Brock Purdy’s turf toe injury, backup Mac Jones gets the start after previously playing for the Jacksonville Jaguars and New England Patriots. Jones had a rocky start to the game and had three sacks and lost a fumble. No, we are not going to blame the offensive line, because Jones had more than three seconds to get rid of the ball on each of those sacks. The average time to throw the ball is around 2.8 seconds.
Despite those mishaps, Jones did have some great throws, especially the ones to running back Christian McCaffrey and wide receiver Jauan Jennings. Jones led the 49ers’ offense and marched down the field from their own 23-yard line with only 1:07 remaining on the clock late in the second quarter. McCaffrey ran a great route and Jones laid it over perfectly for McCaffrey for the score.
Arguably, his best throw came in the early part of the fourth quarter on 3rd and 11 on the Saints' 42-yard line. Jones layers the ball over a couple of Saints defenders where Jennings could get it and ran in for the score as the 49ers would go up 26-14 at the time.
Left guard Ben Bartch got injured early in the first quarter, which had the rookie from Iowa, Connor Colby, step in. Colby had a very impressive game by not allowing any sacks or pressures in his first NFL game. Don’t be surprised if he’s the starter from now on.
Some other players that stood out on Sunday were Upton Stout, Alfred Collins, and Dee Winters. Stout looked way more comfortable against the Saints than he did against the Seahawks. He even recorded his first NFL sack against quarterback Spencer Rattler.
While it won’t show up on the stat sheet, Collins did get in the backfield a lot more this week and was a bit more consistent on pad level, but still needs a lot more improvement.
Winters was a heat-seeking missile out there. He had five solo tackles, with two of those being for losses.
Now that the 49ers have won two games in a row on the road, they’ll head back to Santa Clara for their home opener against the Arizona Cardinals for another divisional game.