Toss out 49ers’ earlier demolition of Packers
Sunday’s NFC championship game is a rematch of a Nov. 24 NFL prime-time contest that was, well, no contest.
The host San Francisco 49ers demolished the Green Bay Packers 37-8.
It was that bad. The Niners led 23-0 late in the third quarter and coasted home.
The rematch will again be played on the Niners’ home field, Levi’s Stadium, down the bay in Santa Clara.
As close NFL observers can tell you, anyone who expects a second game between any two teams to go roughly like the first one are typically dead wrong.
The simple reason is the team that lost probably isn’t going to run many of the same plays that failed to work well (or at all) the first time. And why would they?! What’s more, the team that won the first encounter knows this will be the case, and will gameplan accordingly to meet the anticipated adjusted threats.
“Yeah, we know it’ll be different,” 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan said. “That (November) game got away from them early, and that’s definitely not the team we’re going to see this week.”
A reporter then raised Shanahan’s ire in commenting “it just seems natural” for a team that won the first encounter to “kind of take it for granted” that a win ought to be easier the second time out.
“Don’t be that stupid,” Shanahan said. “That’s not real. This is about Sunday’s game. I could give a thousand (examples). I remember losing to Carolina 37-0 when they were 13-0 and we had to play them two weeks later, and then we beat them at Atlanta and they ended up being 15-1 that year. There’s so many stories like that. And this is the NFL.
“The game before never matters like that. There’s four teams left and it’s four very, very good teams. It’s going to be a hard game for all of us. Also, our players, the type of guys they are, the way they’ve been all year, I’m not concerned about that. They’ll have to answer that question, I’m sure — a lot — but I don’t think that’ll be a worry for our players, which means it won’t be for me.”
The Packers better hope the rematch doesn’t follow the same path. The vaunted 49ers pass rush ate up the Green Bay offensive line and quarterback Aaron Rodgers. A rattled Rodgers had thrown for just 41 yards on 20 attempts and was sacked three times by halftime, as the Packers went 0-for-9 on third downs.
The Niners also bottled up star Green Bay running back Aaron Jones, permitting him to rush for just 17 yards on six carries.
Meanwhile, the Niners scored on five of eight first-half possessions in going up 23-0.
By game’s end, Rodgers was sacked five times and got hit 10 times, converted only one of 15 third downs, and threw for 81 net yards.
It was Green Bay’s second awful performance on the Pacific Coast that month. Three weeks earlier the Packers got drilled by the Chargers in Los Angeles, 26-11.
But in winning six straight since the Nov. 24 loss at Levi’s Stadium, Green Bay has scored no fewer than 20 points each time out, and allowed more than 20 points only last Sunday to Seattle (23).
“I’d like to think that we’ve improved throughout the course of the season, especially the last six weeks,” Packers head coach Matt LaFleur said. “Certainly I don’t think we played our best that day (in San Francisco). You’ve got to give them a lot of credit. There was probably a reason for that. That’s a really talented football team. We know that.
“But in order to compete with them, in order to have a chance to beat them, we’re going to have to be at our best, and that’s everybody — all 11 on that field. And it is a big challenge. But it’s certainly one that I think our guys will prepare for, and be ready to go.”
The Packers are actually the hotter team right now.
Whereas they are undefeated since losing at Levi’s Stadium on that Sunday night before U.S. Thanksgiving — bagging six straight, including last Sunday’s 28-23 defeat of the Seattle Seahawks in an NFC divisional-round playoff game — the Niners have lost twice since pounding the Packers: on Dec. 1 at Baltimore (20-17) and Dec. 15 versus Atlanta (29-22).
Shanahan sure sounds like he’s expecting a nail-biter this Sunday.
“Everyone knows how good Green Bay is, how good their coaching staff is, how good their players are, how good their quarterback is,” Shanahan said. “I think that (first) game really holds zero relevance to what’s going to happen this Sunday.”