The San Francisco 49ers won a football game Sunday afternoon. It had been nearly a month since that happened. But after a three-game tailspin, they got right with a 38-13, wire-to-wire win over the Chicago Bears. The 49ers still have not beaten a team (at the time of the win) with a winning record.
Here are three takeaways from the win.
Isaac Guerendo's starting debut
For anyone still unfamiliar with Isaac Guerendo's game, you got a clear introduction Sunday afternoon. As the only player not named D.K. Metcalf to be 220 pounds or more to run a 4.33-second 40-yard dash, you saw what all those measurables indicated.
Guerendo is a tough, rapid runner who clearly lacks some polish, but also doesn't need to be fully polished. His speed changes angles, and when he hits the second level, he can be gone in a blink.
With Christian McCaffrey and Jordan Mason both on injured reserve, Guerendo ran 15 times for 78 yards with two rushing touchdowns.
Clearly, Guerendo's pass protection has been a problem, and will likely continue to be a problem. But he also had two catches for 50 yards (one of which should have been a touchdown), so it's hard to imagine him being iced out of the pass game entirely going forward.
One point of concern with him is the fact that he suffered a foot injury in the second half and was replaced by Patrick Taylor Jr. He did not return and was not seen on the sidleline for most of the fourth quarter.
Start to finish win (almost all three phases)
This was the first time since Week 3 that the 49ers scored a touchdown on their opening drive. They have done that just twice this season.
This time last year, they had secured eight opening-drive touchdowns. They finished with 10. It's a clear reflection of how inconsistent and underwhelming their execution has been. When they start that well, it has typically ended well.
But on Sunday, it was a nearly complete effort, with the exception of two pathetic Jake Moody kickoffs that failed to reach the landing zone. Maybe he was trying something. Whatever it was, it was not working.
This "contest" was over in the first half, when the 49ers out-gained the Bears 319-4, the ninth-highest margin since 1991, per the AP's Josh Dubow. But unlike in some near and realized collapses this season, the 49ers didn't let the Bears crawl back into the game.
Chicago had one touchdown drive to start the second half, then failed on the two-point conversion. A lost fumble from Caleb Williams just about sealed things.
The defense — which featured an elevated Dee Winters and Talanoa Hufanga starting over Ji'Ayir Brown — must be credited. They were sticky in coverage and made Williams' life exhausting. He was sacked six times, with one from Maliek Collins, two from Leonard Floyd, and another three from Yetur Gross-Matos. One of Gross-Matos' sacks took down Williams by pulling him down over left tackle Braxton Jones.
Meanwhile, the Bears, down 25 points in the fourth quarter, made a long-winded celebration of a meaningless arm punt interception by Jonathan Owens on Brandon Allen. They are deeply unserious.
Bears' laughable approach
Sometimes, when you fire a head coach, it injects life into a team. The Bears fired Matt Eberflus after a comedy of errors, capped off by an innovation in the time mismanagement department last Thursday.
As it turns out, while a horrendous manager of the clock and other head coaching responsibilities, Eberflus might have known a thing or two about coordinating a defense.
The Bears' approach against the 49ers was pathetic. San Francisco is a team that has struggled with press man coverage, and simulated pressures that overload one side of the offensive line. The Bears ran, for the most part, zone coverages. They're a Cover-3-heavy team, and the 49ers love to gut Cover-3.
That's exactly what the 49ers did. Jauan Jennings and George Kittle found acres upon acres of free real estate and combined for 13 catches for 241 yards and two touchdowns (both to Jennings). It was hilariously easy. They employed none of the defensive tactics that have given the 49ers trouble this season and the result, while not predictable, was understandable given that context.