As his dream season came to a heartbreaking end at the hands of the Dodgers in October, a dejected young Giants pitcher sat down inside Oracle Park and considered the state of one of baseball’s best rivalries.
“This won’t be the last time we play them in the playoffs,” Logan Webb said.
If Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay continue along their current trajectories, Sunday’s NFC Championship Game between the 49ers and Rams won’t be the last time these geographic rivals meet in the postseason, either.
“Do you want to see them in the playoffs? Sure,” 49ers kicker Robbie Gould said Wednesday. “There’s a lot of great teams in the NFC, and I’m not shocked they’re in the NFC Championship Game by any means. We’re familiar with them, and they’re familiar with us.”
Playoff matchups between Northern and Southern California foes are nothing new, but suddenly they’re in abundance. After the Lakers bounced the Warriors at the then-Staples Center in a play-in game last May, the Dodgers knocked off the Giants along the shores of McCovey Cove fewer than five months later.
“I think it’s great. It’s what baseball wants,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said before the series. “Giants-Dodgers, one of the great rivalries in sports, and it’s happening.”
The NorCal vs. SoCal rivalry extends to food, music and culture, but it’s most deeply rooted in sports.
“I’ve always hated the Dodgers more than any other team in sports, but the invasion of Dodgers fans at Oracle Park really ratcheted up the Northern California-Southern California rivalry,” KNBR host Adam Copeland, a Bay Area native, said.
When the 49ers travel to SoFi Stadium to meet the Rams, they’ll attempt to flip Southern California’s successful script.
The 49ers finished two games behind the Rams in the NFC West standings but earned the No. 6 seed in the playoffs after using a 17-point comeback to secure an overtime victory in Los Angeles in Week 18. McVay’s Rams won the division, but entering Sunday, the 49ers have won six consecutive head-to-head matchups.
The result of the season finale “really hasn’t been much of a factor on how teams do (in the playoffs) dependent upon whichever lens you want to look at it through,” McVay said after the game. “So, we’re going to choose to say it doesn’t mean s—.”
Considering the longstanding relationship between Shanahan and McVay and the 49ers’ recent dominance in the series, it’s difficult to take his words at face value.
McVay’s first NFL job came as an offensive assistant under Shanahan and his father, Mike, the former head coach of the Washington Football Team. When Kyle Shanahan became the Cleveland Browns’ offensive coordinator in 2014, new Washington head coach Jay Gruden elevated McVay to offensive coordinator.
Three years later, Shanahan and McVay were hired by the 49ers and Rams, respectively, and since that time they have each taken their team to a Super Bowl.
On Sunday, one will be heading to a second.
Copeland said that the Rams will have to steal a win soon to make it a true rivalry, but admitted that L.A. is now the 49ers’ top competition in the division.
“It does feel like we’ve transitioned away from Seahawks and 49ers toward Rams and 49ers,” he said, “and that intensity of the rivalry will be heightened regardless of the outcome of this game.”
In some ways, the 49ers-Rams matchup mirrors what a postseason meeting between the Warriors and Lakers represents. The franchises, while geographic rivals, don’t have much of a storied history together.
The Lakers owned the NBA during the 1980s and 2000s while the Warriors were largely irrelevant. When Golden State rose to power in the mid-2010s, Los Angeles had some of its worst teams ever. Prior to the May play-in game, they hadn’t met in the postseason since 1991 and the Warriors haven’t beaten the Lakers in the playoffs since 1967.
That didn’t take the drama or sting out of a loss that forced the Warriors into a one-game playoff, which they ultimately lost.
“Last night’s game honestly felt like a Finals game,” Kerr said on 95.7 The Game the next day. “It was so much fun. Obviously losing, it made it so difficult. But what the hell, that’s what it’s all about.”
Sunday’s game between the 49ers and Rams will mark the second-ever playoff matchup for the franchises and the first since San Francisco defeated Los Angeles 30-3 in the 1990 NFC Championship Game. A lack of historical anecdotes is made up for in part by the current dynamics between two of the league’s most talented rosters.
With Shanahan and McVay, two of the NFL’s most respected coaches, at the helm, the 49ers and Rams appear to be heading on a collision course that more closely resembles the one the Giants and Dodgers are paving for themselves.
Like the Giants and Dodgers, who emerged as the class of Major League Baseball in 2021, the 49ers and Rams have each assembled remarkably deep rosters. The Rams, Giants and Dodgers didn’t experience anything like the 49ers’ early-season struggles, but it’s easy to see how all four franchises are set up for long-term success.
Head-to-head matchups only accentuate the teams’ greatness.
“I think the character of the team, independent of the talent of the team, really shined in our games against the Dodgers,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said in October.
All season long, Shanahan has preached about the character of his team, its resilient nature and how well it has overcome adversity to keep its dream alive. As the 49ers take the field on Sunday, they’ll attempt to do what neither the Warriors nor the Giants could in their most recent postseason appearances: Score a win for Northern California. Source: www.mercurynews.com