MELBOURNE – The San Francisco 49ers thrashed the Los Angeles Rams 27-7 Friday in the NFL’s first-ever regular-season game in Australia, quarterback Brock Purdy throwing for three touchdowns to dismantle this season’s heavily hyped favorites.
Much of the pregame talk had surrounded the two California-based teams’ wildly different approaches for navigating the epic flight and 17-hour time zone difference to Melbourne and its iconic 100,000-capacity cricket stadium. The Rams had jetted in just the morning before.
How far that affected the game will be debated. But reigning MVP quarterback Matthew Stafford and star off-season acquisition Myles Garrett undoubtedly looked sluggish up against their San Francisco counterparts, who arrived a week earlier to acclimatize.
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