Believe it, Packers really can win today
SANTA CLARA >> Somebody stop the playoffs.
There’s a scandal in the NFL, and it’s as big as sign-stealing in Major League Baseball.
The postseason has been stained because someone invited a 3-13 team to the party. Incomprehensibly, the Green Bay Packers made it all the way to the NFC Championship Game today to face the invincible 49ers at Levi’s Stadium.
Hey, Richard Sherman isn’t the only one who can be sarcastic to make a point.
Judging from the chance given to the Packers in the Bay Area as well as the rest of the country, you’d think they finished the regular season the reverse of 133. Now Green Bay is 14-3, just like the 49ers, after last week’s 28-23 win over the Seattle Seahawks. Yet
it seems as if the 49ers, 7 ½ point favorites, may as well be named the champions by acclamation, rather than going through the formality of actually playing the game.
But this isn’t Buster Douglas vs. Mike Tyson, and a Green Bay win wouldn’t fundamentally change the course of playoff football as we know it. You don’t get to 14-3 by accident.
If memory serves, the only thing standing between the Seahawks and a sweep of the 49ers this season was linebacker Dre Greenlaw and a gargantuan tackle at the 1-yard line. Otherwise, the 49ers would have hit the road for their playoff opener and not had a week off to rest up and get healthy before taking apart the Minnesota Vikings.
Green Bay also beat the Seahawks, just as it did its last five opponents in the regular season to earn the No. 2 seed in the NFC.
Five reasons the Packers can beat the 49ers:
1. NOV. 24: 49ERS 37, PACKERS 8 >> Former 49ers assistant and Green Bay head coach Mike Holmgren was on the radio the other day with a warning that each game is its own entity. The 49ers resounding win at Levi’s in Week 12? Ancient history.
That game could well be the thing the Packers have most in their favor. They haven’t lost since, and it’s not as if Green Bay was a near.500 wild card just sneaking in to the playoffs. The Packers know it was their worst game of the season, understand what they’re capable of and realize what it took to get to 13-3.
“We’re not down 29 going into the game,” Packers wide receiver Alan Lazard told reporters in Green Bay. “We know we played our worst game of the season that game. They’re obviously very good and they played a really good game. We know we’re not gonna go out there and lay an egg this time. We’re gonna have a good game plan and go out and execute.”
The 49ers have said the right things all week, and may even believe it. At the same time, it’s hard to believe it’s not in the back of their minds that they’re playing the same team they embarrassed before a national television audience a mere 56 days ago.
For what it’s worth, teams that have won games in the playoffs by 25 or more points in the regular season and played them again in the postseason are 22-15. Hardly a sure thing.
2. AARON RODGERS TOPS JIMMY GAROPPOLO >> It’s got to be this way for the Packers to win, and it would be foolish to completely discount Rodgers even as Jimmy Garoppolo attempts to ascend the Joe Montana-steve Young ladder. As it stands, Garoppolo has yet to make it as far as Colin Kaepernick.
By Rodgers’ standards, he had a down season. As in 62 percent completions, 4,002 yards passing, 26 touchdowns, four interceptions and a 95.4 passer rating. That’s how good Rodgers has been, with numbers like that precipitating talk of a “decline” in his play.
The supposed decline didn’t prevent Rodgers from an other-worldly performance against the Raiders with a 158.3 passer rating. Even considering the opponent, if there was a better performance by a quarterback this season, I haven’t seen it. Or coming up huge against Seattle including a clutch third-and-8 32yard strike to Davante Adams into the heart of the Seahawks and Russell Wilson. The same Russell Wilson the 49ers didn’t want to face for a third time.
That doesn’t mean Garoppolo isn’t good with the possibility of being great. Young wound up in the Hall of Fame and lost two of three to Brett Favre (not including another loss when Elvis Grbac started in Green Bay while Young had a broken rib) because Favre was better on that day. Is it such a stretch to think Rodgers could decisively outplay Garoppolo? 3. 49ERS’ HEART-STOPPING RECENT HISTORY >> The 49ers had their share of one-sided wins, as they did against the Packers. But after that game came a series of down-to-the-wire games that made for mustsee TV.
They lost to the Baltimore Ravens 20-17, beat the New Orleans Saints 48-46, lost to the Atlanta Falcons 29-22, beat the Los Angeles Rams 34-31 and then held on to win 26-21 on Greenlaw’s stop of Jacob Hollister at the 1-yard line.
It’s as if their impressive playoff opening win over the Minnesota Vikings
has erased those games from memory and the 49ers have reverted to the machine that beat up the Packers.
It’s to their credit that the 49ers can win the easy ones and their share of the close ones, but keep in mind any game that goes down the final play can go either way.
4. AN EARLY MISTAKE CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING
>> In a divisional round game at Candlestick Park against the Packers following the 1995 season, Young opened the game with a checkdown pass to Adam Walker. Walker fumbled, and Craig Newsome picked it up and raced 31 yards for a touchdown. Green Bay rode the wave to a 21-0 lead and won 27-17.
This happened the year after the 49ers won the Super Bowl.
What does a play from a quarter-century ago have to do with Packers49ers in the present day? Nothing really, except that’s how it goes sometimes in playoff football. If the Packers can seize on an early 49ers mistake — and Garoppolo has been known to occasionally throw it to the other team early on -- momentum can be a great equalizer for the road team.
5. PACKERS OFFENSIVE LINE IS BETTER THAN YOU THINK >> Green Bay cut its sacks allowed from 53 in 2018 to 36 in 2019. That’s not a great total unless you consider that Rodgers loves to hold on to the ball and make a play whenever possible, thereby increasing the amount of sacks he takes as opposed to other quarterbacks.
Just last week, the Packers were able to plug former Raider Jared Veldheer, who had been retired, in at right tackle in place of the injured Bryan Bulaga and he played capably. Bulaga is expected back this week, and David Bakhtiari is one of the NFL’S top left tackles.
As good as the 49ers are up front, it won’t necessarily be an expressway to Rodgers if Green Bay can maintain some semblance of offensive balance with running back Aaron Jones and keep the score close. It could also give Davante Adams time to get open as Michael Thomas and Julio Jones did against the 49ers secondary.
And keeping it close would mean the Packers would have more of a chance than you think.