The San Francisco 49ers were projected by many to defeat Jaxson Dart and the New York Giants despite the fact that Brock Purdy remains out of action due to his injury, and they managed to fulfill those expectations with a dominant offensive performance on the road.
Mac Jones completed his first 13 passes, Christian McCaffrey found the end zone twice, and the 49ers managed 34 points against a Giants team that is already on the verge of wiping this coaching staff clean and starting from scratch in the offseason.
Even if head coach Brian Daboll is going to get the remainder of the season to prove that he is the right guy to lead this team following yet another tough season, Kyle Shanahan and the San Francisco offense was so ruthlessly efficient that it might force New York to make some changes to their infrastructure.
After yet another disappointing performance despite some star players on the defensive line, San Francisco's ruthlessly efficient game might be enough for the Giants to finally bite the bullet and part ways with much-maligned defensive coordinator Shane Bowen. This outcome may actually be doing the Giants a favor based on his recent showings.
49ers may get Giants DC Shane Bowen fired after Week 8 win
Bowen came to the Giants with a fair degree of hype after some solid performances with the Tennessee Titans, but it looks like more of his success may have been tied to Mike Vrabel than the Giants may have realized. At this point, Bowen is among the league's worst coordinators.
Between giving up 33 points in the fourth quarter during a loss to the Denver Broncos and letting Jones dice them up so efficiently that he may as well have been Joe Montana, it seems harder to imagine a world in which the Giants will retain Bowen for much longer.
Even though the Giants are an organization that doesn't like firing coaches and values continuity, things have fallen to the point where it seems like Daboll himself may end up getting washed out of town. San Francisco showed that Dart's development is not enough to save Daboll's job.
The 49ers may leave some carnage in their wake, but they did exactly what they were supposed to do. Rather than playing down to their competition, the Niners decimated a beaten-up team at the bottom of the standings. That's what contending teams do.