The 49ers haven’t started 1-0 in consecutive seasons since Chip Kelly

It’ll be a reunion as the New York Jets and their plethora of former 49ers head to Levi’s Stadium to take on San Francisco on Monday night. While Robert Saleh, Javon Kinlaw, and Jeff Ulbrich, among others, return, the 49ers offense will be at full strength after an eventful preseason.

With Brandon Aiyuk and Trent Williams signing their extensions last week and Christian McCaffrey returning from injury, it’ll be a question of how rusty the 49ers offense will look, if at all, against a Jets defense that was pretty good in 2023.

Our numbers-to-know series returns for 2024, starting with a look at just how good that Jets defense was:

23.4

The Jets defense ranked second in 2023, allowing 23.4 yards per drive.

The only team better than the Jets was Cleveland, and we saw what that 49ers offense – without Trent Williams and an injured Deebo Samuel – did against the Browns defense last season.

For all the issues the Jets offense had in 2023, the defense more than did their fair share to try to keep the Jets afloat. The defense ranked third in total yards, second in passing yards, and second in first downs allowed. It was vulnerable against the run, ranking 25th in the league. The Jets used the offseason in Javon Kinlaw and Leki Fotu (he’s out on Monday) and drafted Leonard Taylor to help support Quinnen WIlliams against the run in 2024.

The 49ers will counter and test that run defense with McCaffrey early and as often as Shanahan can. McCaffrey appeared on the injury report on Thursday with a calf/Achilles injury, but things are trending for him to be a full go on Monday night. The San Francisco offense led the league, averaging 37.8 yards per drive and 2.7 points per drive. It’s no secret the 49ers offense can move the ball.

However, an offense that has gone an entire camp and preseason without Aiyuk, McCaffrey, and Williams has the potential to start out the gates slowly. If the 49ers offense falls behind the eight-ball, it could be in unfavorable situations against the Sauce Gardner and the New York secondary.

2.2

Aaron Rodgers’s interception percentage in 2022—his last entire season as a starter—was 2.2, the third-highest rate of his career when he started more than ten games.

The ten-game qualifier throws out his 2005 season, where he played in three games, and 2017, where Rodgers was throwing an interception on 2.5 percent of his passes where a broken collarbone limited his season to seven games.

It is worth noting that the two years when Rodgers had a higher interception rate than 2022 was 2008 – his first year as the Green Bay starting quarterback – and 2010.

Now, it could be possible that it’s just a blip in the 19-year career of a future hall-of-fame quarterback. But it could also be a sign of natural regression that a then 39- now 41-year-old coming off an Achilles injury has to deal with. And while Rodgers has had success against the Kyle Shanahan 49ers – at least in terms of interceptions – he hasn’t faced San Francisco since 2021, and that’s significant.

In six games (including the postseason) against the Shanahan-era 49ers, Rodgers has thrown two interceptions on 211 attempts – an interception on every 0.9 passes. Those six games, however, were from 2018 to 2021. In that timeframe, the 49ers defense combined for 35 interceptions. In the two years since San Francisco has led the league with 42 interceptions.

1-0

The 49ers have not started consecutive seasons 1-0 since 2015-16.

Those would be the two seasons that Jim Tomsula and Chip Kelly were at the helm for the 49ers. I guess a silly way to look at this is that Shanahan has led the 49ers to the Super Bowl more times than he’s started consecutive seasons winning the opener.

But since the Tomsula/Kelly era, San Francisco has opened the season by:

• Losing to Carolina, 23-3, in 2017
• Losing in Minnesota, 24-16, in 2018
• Winning in Tampa Bay, 31-17, in 2019
• Losing to Arizona, 24-20, in 2020
• Winning in Detroit, 41-33, in 2021
• Losing in Chicago, 19-10, in 2022
• Winning in Pittsburgh, 30-7, last season

Some weird and silly football games are on that list, but Shanahan has yet to secure a win in the opener in back-to-back years. That could change against the Jets on Monday night, who the 49ers beat in the only other meeting between the two teams under Shanahan, 31-13, in 2020.

52

The San Francisco 49ers franchise has won 52 Monday Night Football games, one behind the Pittsburgh Steelers (53) for most all-time.

The 49ers had a chance to match or even pass the Steelers after Pittsburgh beat the Browns in Week 2 last season, but San Francisco lost both of its Monday night games to Minnesota and Baltimore. Monday will mark the 84th time the 49ers have appeared on Monday Night Football, with the 49ers standing at 52-31.

Under Shanahan, the 49ers have a 4-6 record on Monday night, winning three in a row from 2021-2022, but were outscored 55-36 in the two 2023 games. There is a pattern; however, that probably means nothing for the 49ers against the Jets, but it’s something that exists! Shanahan has never lost three Monday night games in a row, with San Francisco currently on a two-game skid.