SANTA CLARA (KPIX) — The exodus began Friday with excited Niners Faithful heading en masse to Los Angeles for the 49ers showdown against the Rams for the NFC Championship.
Before the team left for Southern California, 49ers fans converged on Levi’s Stadium chanting “Beat L.A.” to give the team a proper sendoff.
“We’re LA-bound baby! LA-bound right now!” said Liz Ramirez, who was about to jump in her own car to drive down to Los Angeles to support the team. “The lucky ones are those who are flying down and will be there in an hour. It’s going to take us a while but it’s all worth it.”
It was a red dawn on I-5 as 49ers fan cars formed a caravan of color on the way to the Southland.
“We were getting honks and thumbs-ups. About 90 percent of those people were Niner fans. We did have that ten percent though, Rams fans showing us their IQ, shouting out their windows. We’ve been getting heckled a little bit but there are more Niner fans that we’ve run into so far,” said Jesse Mendez of the South Bay fan group 408 Faithful.
It wasn’t just on the streets and highways. 49ers fans were easy to spot at the three Bay Area airports as they hopped on planes for the short flight south.
“We started 3-5, so I did not expect this but I’m glad that we’re here,” Ian Rose said.
The fans have helped fuel the team to two playoff road wins in what was supposed to be enemy territory.
Right now tickets sales are showing more Niners fans will show up at SoFi Stadium for this Sunday’s big game and that could make a big difference.
During the two teams’ matchup a few weeks ago, the Faithful crowd noise was so loud that the Rams were forced to go into silent counts at their own stadium.
“They had to blame the fans. †hey said ‘This isn’t our home fans, all the Niners fans took it over,’” said Mercury News’ 49ers reporter Cam Inman. “I mean that’s amazing to consider that they have to prepare as if they’re going into hostile territory even though they’re in their home stadium.”
“I can tell the Rams fans the only thing they’re going to win is the coin flip,” Mendez said.
The last NFC Championship game 49ers won was a couple years ago with Jimmy Garoppolo as quarterback. The team lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl.
Inman, who will be at the game on Sunday, said the “Niners need to win a ring, it’s been too long.”
“The 49ers have beat L.A. twice this year, twice last year, twice the year before so that’s six meetings in a row,” Inman said. “That’s not going to mean anything if they don’t win this game Sunday.”
Source: sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com.