Family feud goes global: Rams 49ers take their rivalry down under

There are family feuds, and then there are the Rams and 49ers, two distant relatives who have spent decades arguing over the deed to California.

They have drawn battle lines from Los Angeles to the Bay Area, turned freeways and airports into borders and made generations of fans choose sides.

Northern California scarlet and gold.

Southern California blue and gold. 

No neutral territory and certainly no polite conversation at the holiday table.

Now the NFL is taking the whole wonderfully bitter dispute international.

Nearly 8,000 miles from California, across the Pacific Ocean, beyond the equator and into another hemisphere, the Rams and 49ers will renew their rivalry Friday morning in Melbourne.

Or, Thursday night California time.

The flight takes roughly 16 hours. The history has been traveling for 76 years.

Think of it as a California family feud with passports.

The Melbourne Cricket Ground has hosted Australian Football League grand finals and Olympic ceremonies. Now one of the world’s most iconic sporting venues will provide the stage for an argument that started in1950 and has been handed down from generation to generation ever since.

And if any city can appreciate the occasion, it is Melbourne. This is a sports-mad place where nearly 100,000 people can fill the MCG, where Australian rules football is stitched into the culture and where rivalries such as Collingwood-Carlton draw battle lines between families and friends.

Australians understand physical games, territorial pride and the fine art of disliking the other side. They will not need a seminar on Rams-49ers. Give them the colors, the history and one early collision, and they will understand the assignment.

The accents will be different. The game will begin at 10:35 in the morning locally. But the animosity will require no translation.

For the Rams, this represents an opportunity to plant their flag in a market they have spent years cultivating while making an early claim on the NFC West. It is also another chance to remind the 49ers that no amount of travel can put sufficient distance between them.

The teams have met 154 times, including two postseason games, with San Francisco holding a narrow overall advantage. Franchises do not play that often without accumulating grudges, scars and enough disputed history to fill every overhead compartment on the flight to Australia.

The 49ers owned the rivalry’s defining postseason moment for more than three decades. In January 1990, San Francisco dismantled the Rams 30-3 in the NFC championship game at Candlestick Park. Joe Montana threw two touchdown passes, the 49ers overwhelmed Jim Everett and San Francisco advanced to win its second consecutive Super Bowl.

That loss lingered. So did the 17 consecutive games San Francisco won against the Rams from 1990 through 1998, a streak that followed the rivalry even after the Rams left Southern California for St. Louis.

The Rams came home in 2016, restoring the rivalry to its proper California dimensions. Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan arrived a year later and gave it another layer. They were friends, former Washington assistants and two of the sharpest offensive minds of their generation.

Their familiarity made the games more personal, not less.

Then came the night that changed the Rams’ side of the rivalry forever.

In the NFC championship game following the 2021 season, the 49ers led 17-7 entering the fourth quarter at SoFi Stadium. Their fans had flooded the building with red, creating the unsettling impression that the Rams were guests in their own home.

San Francisco appeared headed to another Super Bowl and another permanent place inside the Rams’ heads.

Instead, Matthew Stafford found Cooper Kupp for a touchdown. Jaquiski Tartt dropped a potential interception. Matt Gay tied the game and then put the Rams ahead. Finally, Aaron Donald drove through San Francisco’s protection and forced Jimmy Garoppolo into the desperate interception that sent Los Angeles to the Super Bowl.

Rams 20, 49ers 17.

Two weeks later, the Rams were champions.

That victory did not end the feud. Family feuds do not end; they simply acquire new stories. But it balanced the postseason ledger at one victory apiece and gave the Rams an answer whenever San Francisco points toward 1989.

Now comes Melbourne, where another enormous chapter waits to be written.

San Francisco traveled early, choosing to acclimate and embrace Australia. The Rams stayed home longer and maintained their normal preparation schedule before beginning the long flight. One organization treated the trip like an extended international expedition; the other approached it as a business trip with an unusually distant destination.

The Rams will play without Donald, delaying the comeback of the greatest defensive player in franchise history while he continues ramping up after two seasons away. His absence removes one of the rivalry’s central figures, but not its urgency.

Los Angeles still brings Myles Garrett, Stafford, Puka Nacua, Davante Adams and a roster built to contend for a championship.

San Francisco counters with Brock Purdy, Christian McCaffrey, Trent Williams and the returning Nick Bosa. These are not two teams sent abroad merely to promote the sport. They are legitimate NFC powers, and Thursday night back in California could plausibly become a preview of another NFC championship meeting four months from now.

That possibility gives the opener weight beyond the spectacle. A divisional victory travels home with the winner. So does an early tiebreaker, confidence and perhaps a psychological edge that could resurface in January.

The NFL wants Melbourne to see what its game looks like at its biggest and best. It could not have chosen a more authentic export than Rams-49ers: stars everywhere, contrasting styles, coaching brilliance and decades of genuine dislike.

And somewhere inside that massive cricket ground, nearly 8,000 miles from home, two old rivals will discover that the world is plenty big – but still not big enough for both of them.