A couple of the final Vikings questions still hanging out there before Week 1 revolved around coach Mike Zimmer's nickel defense. Which linebacker would play in the nickel alongside Anthony Barr? And would it be Captain Munnerlyn or top pick Trae Waynes who came in as a third corner?
We finally got the answers we were looking for last night, but they proved to be mostly irrelevant against the run-oriented 49ers offense.
The 49ers used two or three tight ends at a time for much of their 20-3 win against the Vikings. And why not? They averaged 5.9 yards per carry while piling up 230 rushing yards. Carlos Hyde had 168 of them as he seemed to gash the Vikings for eight or nine yards every time he touched the ball.
Because the 49ers often used two running backs or two tight ends (or in some cases both), Zimmer was forced to keep his base defense in there.
Barr, who will be an every-down player again this season, played all 73 defensive snaps. Fellow outside linebacker Chad Greenway and middle linebacker Gerald Hodges, who started in the base defense but left the field when the 49ers used more than two wide receivers, both played 63 snaps.
As a result, rookie Eric Kendricks, the other nickel linebacker beside his former UCLA teammate Barr, played just 10 snaps in his NFL debut.
As for the third cornerback question, it was Munnerlyn who got the nod over Waynes. He played just 15 snaps, and five of those came when starter Terence Newman got banged up in the second quarter. Waynes, meanwhile, didn't play on defense, but he got nine snaps on special teams.
With the 49ers controlling the clock and wearing down the Vikings with the running game, all eight active defensive linemen played at least 17 snaps.