First, a quick look back at the shitshow from yesterday, with Darnold down after 2 attempts and AJ Brown dropping during the game to a likely ankle sprain it was all a bit messy, and I’ll avoid taking a victory lap on Mr. Maye for now because the Seahawks clearly have his number. He’ll have to bounce back from a dreadful ending to a 3-interception game though and step up to the much tougher schedule they face this season.
The Darnold injury for the Seahawks sounds like it’s not too serious so they’ll be hopeful he comes back soon, they say he’ll miss some time but they dodged a bullet. On paper it looks again like it’s all JSN and that seems to be unstoppable, so why the hell not. The first SkyBet boost of the season was JSN to score so they’re 1/1 so far this year.
Obviously, I mentioned that Hunter Henry had no competition at TE and then, of course, a backup rookie TE scores their TD.
Oh, and I had Seahawks -3.5 on my picks contest… so that’s a great start.
Talking of the picks contest, you can still enter up to Sunday – https://touchdowntips.com/2026/08/28/contest26/ – £100 entry, winner takes all, pick 5 games against the spread each week and most points come the end of the season takes the pot!
49ers +3.5 v Rams: 48.5
The NFL’s pursuit of total world domination continues with the first regular-season NFL game in Australia as two California teams take to the hallowed turf of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, home to many, many, MANY embarrassing England test team defeats throughout the years. I automatically assumed it would be really warm there, but a nice 18-20 celcius seems like perfect playing weather to me.
A crowd of close to 100,000 will be in attendance for the 1035AM local time kick-off, chosen to keep it at primetime in the states, and a horrible 135am in the UK. It’s going to be a strange sight having a oblong field inside an oval stadium but it should be a great event with the two teams chosen.
San Francisco 49ers
“They’re dead, Dave.”
“What? Ricky Pearsall?”
“They’re dead, Dave. Everybody’s dead, Dave.”
“Even Alf Collins? What about Sam Okuayinonu and Christian Kirk? Surely not Austen Pleasants?!”
“They’re dead, Dave. Everybody’s dead, Dave. They’re all done.”
“Brandon Aiyuk?”
“He might as well be dead. He’s gone crazy, Dave. Lost it. Bonkers. Not even the Commanders want him now.”
“Tell me that Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, and Nick Bosa are okay?!”
“Well… actually, yeah, they are! They seem to have overcome their various ailments and will function adequately for today at least”
It’s been another summer of injuries for the 49ers as the curse of the power station has hurt their build up. Still, on the plus side they are used to this happening, as it does every single year. While it looked like De’Zhaun Stribling (not sure I’ll be using his first name again this year) was going to largely be a blocking WR he’s had a promising off-season and should fill in well for Pearsall who is done for the year.
The signing of Mike Evans and the return of Deebo Samuel adds some veteran presence to the receiving corps and George Kittle being officially a “go” for this opener means there’s about 30 years of experience in the league between the pass-catchers. If Kittle isn’t a full go then Jake Tonges has shown he can deputise well enough. Evans should be on for a big season if he can stay healthy (also had strains in camp) and could fill a similar role to that of Davante Adams on the other side of the ball. Demarcus Robinson is there too, good for him.
I don’t think Brock Purdy will ever lead this team to the Super Bowl, but he’s made a great career for himself and with a fully healthy offense he’s a good QB, mobile and with a good arm, he does make some impressive throws. He’s great for fantasy though.
This should be a run-first team in the most part though with Christian McCaffrey looking to put up big numbers again this season and hoping he can stay healthy throughout after topping 2000 total yards last year with 17 total TDs. He’s the key for this team, but 30 is getting up there for heavy-workload RBs so we’ll see how that goes this year. They haven’t got much proven behind him with Jordan James and rookie Kaelon Black so they’ll have their fingers crossed. CmC scored once against the Rams last year and put up under 100 on the ground, but had 8 receptions in each game with near 150 yards, so that could be an angle to attack here.
The defense has suffered some hits from the injury bug too, but Fred Warner returns after missing last season, he’ll be alongside Dre Greenlaw again and the signing of Osa Odighizuwa from the Cowboys adds some pass-rush help for Bosa up front.
Los Angeles Rams
I think it’s safe to say that it’s Super Bowl or bust for the Rams who look to host the finale in their own stadium once again. The trade for Myles Garrett shook the league and with Aaron Donald coming out of retirement promises to be a very fun and potent pass-rush. Jared Verse was the sacrificial player given to the Rams, but Kobie Turner returns to add more pop and the signing of Trent McDuffie should be good for them at corner. They had a good defense already, it got better.
The offense stays largely as is as well with Matthew Stafford back for his 17th season after leading the league in yards and scores last year and taking the MVP award. It wasn’t a pretty playoff run with narrow wins before they lost in the conference title game but they’ve done what they think is needed to take that extra step and I can’t argue with them being the big favourites to do that this year.
Kyren Williams and Blake Corum formed a good 1-2 punch on the ground, I have to assume it will be the same this year but I do think Corum will eat into Kyrens’ usage even more and restrict his impact on the whole. We will have to wait and see on that front. With McVay at coach the run game will always be good.
Puka Nakua looks like he’s avoiding punishment for biting people and/or being antisemitic, so he’ll be available and looking to lead the league in yardage, he’s got a good marker after JSN topped 120 last night. Davante Adams led the league in TDs last year with most of them from about 5 yards out and I’d guess he’ll have a similar role here, if he can’t be stopped then why go away from it. Behind those two though it’s a mix of bit-part players and the return of Tutu Atwell adds explosivity as well as giving them a familiar kick returner.
They ran a LOAD of 3 TE sets last season and with Tyler Higbee, Colby Parkinson and Terrance Ferguson with the addition of Max Klare in the draft I think they’ll probably do the same here. I think Higbee will be catch the most passes of the 4 after missing the start of last year with an injury, but picking one each week will be rather difficult for bettors.
Winner?
I mean, I’ve got to take the Rams to win, they may well win 90% of their games this season and while I do respect what the 49ers do, despite injuries every year, I just can’t see past the Rams this season.
It may well be worth noting the 49ers came out a week ago, while the Rams are cutting their trip short and only recently arrived. The time difference is fairly absurd at 17 hours, but I guess go the other way and it’s only 7… I think the 49ers will be more acclimated so even more reason to worry about the spread.
It’s a relatively high total and international games are weird so I’ll be staying away there.
Props
I don’t really have anything, I was looking at Stribling o3.5 receptions, but I just don’t know how much he’ll see the field with a full-strength team out there. Higbee at 6/1 isn’t bad I guess. Tonges as well at 8/1 if you think Kittle maybe isn’t fully healthy and I do like the long-shot of Tutu Atwell but he was barely used last time he was on the team so might be strictly a returner now.
Scratch that – I’ll ladder CMC receptions – 5+ at 4/5, 6 at 17/10, 7 at 16/5 and 8 at 25/4 (prices at Bet365) – Quite significantly higher than Skybet/PP offerings.
TouchdownTips 
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