Kyle Shanahan: Rams lobbied to move home game against 49ers to Australia

There’s one way to keep 49ers fans from taking over SoFi Stadium during a “road” game against the Rams.

Move it to Melbourne.

In a joint interview with Packers coach Matt LaFleur, 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said he knows “for a fact” that the Rams pushed to have their home game against the 49ers be the game that was sent from La La Land to the Land Down Under.

“I’m pretty sure the Rams lobbied for that game,” LaFleur said when the subject of the Australia game came up.

“I know for a fact they did,” Shanahan said. “That’s what’s so bothersome.”

Shanahan joked (we think) that he wants the 49ers’ “home” game in Mexico to have the Rams as the visiting team.

Still, Shanahan understands why the Rams would want to avoid seeing a home game against the 49ers become a home game for the 49ers. (The Chargers were surely thinking about that last year, when a potential Chiefs takeover of SoFi Stadium was moved to Brazil.)

“That would suck to have to do silent cadence and to have our home game at their stadium,” Shanahan said. “So I get their ambitions, but they were rewarded that. So I’m just hoping we can get our request, too. I’d love them to come to Mexico.”

Having both ends of a home-and-home series played on foreign soil would be unprecedented, to say the least. And it would be an interesting tweak, if it ever happens.

For now, we’ll all settle for the interesting reality that the Rams found a way to tweak the 49ers by successfully persuading the NFL to export what would have been another 49ers home game.