FOOTBALL IS BACK. The 2026 NFL season is officially here, and the schedule makers decided a Super Bowl rematch on Wednesday wasn’t enough chaos. Night two is an NFC West blood feud on the other side of the planet. We’re getting the Rams and 49ers at the Melbourne Cricket Ground — the first regular-season NFL game in Australia — Thursday at 8:35 p.m. ET on Netflix.
More than 100,000 people packed into a cricket stadium to watch Sean McVay vs. Kyle Shanahan for the millionth time. Neutral field. Fifteen-hour flights. Friday morning kickoff local time. No warm-up. No SoFi. No Levi’s. Just two 12-5 teams who both got run over by Seattle in the playoffs last year, opening the season 8,000 miles from home.
The Rams get to walk in as Super Bowl favorites. Reigning MVP Matthew Stafford has Puka Nacua, Davante Adams, and Kyren Williams. Myles Garrett makes his Rams debut. The defense got rebuilt on purpose. The one thing they do not have Thursday: Aaron Donald. He came out of retirement, signed, and then did not get on the plane.
Shanahan said he’s never been more excited to be wrong. San Francisco is trying to start Year 10 under Shanahan with Brock Purdy and Christian McCaffrey, plus Mike Evans in the building. Nick Bosa and George Kittle made the trip after the ACL and Achilles, but nobody knows how many snaps they actually get. Alfred Collins, the guy who forced that goal-line fumble against L.A. last year, tore his patellar tendon in Melbourne this week and is done for the season. Ricky Pearsall is already gone for the year. Last time these two played, the Rams dropped 42 on San Francisco in Santa Clara.
The line opened Rams -2.5 and has been bet up to about a field goal and a half. Total sits around 48.5. L.A. is trying to look like a dynasty before Week 1 even starts. The 49ers have had extra days on the ground Down Under while the Rams landed late. And we get all of it on NIGHT TWO, on Netflix, in a stadium that has never seen an NFL snap. We give our pick for the game, our same-game parlay, and our two sneaky props to start the season. We have waited seven months for this. No more preseason. No more depth-chart arguments. No more pretending we care about training camp clips. The NFL is officially back — and it opened in Seattle last night and continues in Australia tomorrow.
Don’t take a single game for granted because somehow we’re going to blink and it’ll be Week 14.
Drop your favorite bet for Rams–49ers in the comments. 🏈
00:00 - Intro & Welcome
00:21 - Niners vs. Rams in Australia
08:09 - Game Pick
09:40 - Same Game Parlay (4-Leg, +400)
16:00 - BetMGM Ad Break
16:26 - Sketchy Prop
19:35 - First Touchdown Scorer
22:49 - Sign-Off
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