Good afternoon, everyone. On a rainy Saturday night, the Green Bay Packers took on the San Francisco (Santa Clara) 49ers at Levi’s Stadium for the chance to reach the NFC championship game. Entering this game, the Packers were coming off of their big win against the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium and were looking to keep that momentum going. The 49ers have been an opponent that has ended the Packers’ season in 4 previous contests over the past 12 years. This game marked the 10th playoff matchup between the two teams, which is the most in NFL history. The Packers were so close to pulling off the upset, but they couldn’t finish the job as they lost by 3 points. Let’s get into detail on how the game went down.
Just like last week against Dallas, the Packers started this game on the offensive side of the football. Keisean Nixon was able to take the kickoff to the Green Bay 31 yard line. From there, the offense started a long drive that lasted nearly 8 minutes. A good mix of run and pass plays, plus a pass interference penalty, got the Packers inside the red zone. The Packers were unable to turn the red zone opportunity into a touchdown after Jordan Love threw incomplete to Romeo Doubs on third and 8 from the San Francisco 11. The field goal by Anders Carlson was good from 29 yards out, giving the Packers a 3-0 lead with 7:22 left in the first quarter. The Packers defense was able to force the 49ers to punt on their first drive, but there was a big missed opportunity when Darnell Savage dropped what would have been a pick six. The drive ended in a punt when Brock Purdy was sacked for a loss of 7 yards on third and 6 from the San Francisco 44 yard line. Jayden Reed caught the punt at the Green Bay 6 and returned it 12 yards to the 18. From there, the Packers started their next drive hoping to get into the end zone. A big play during the drive was on third and 6 from the Green Bay 29 yard line. On that play, Jordan Love found Romeo Doubs for a pass that Doubs was able to take to the San Francisco 33 yard line. Two plays (and an illegal man downfield penalty) later, Emanuel Wilson took a short pass and ran 11 yards for the first down. Tucker Kraft got hurt during the play, but he would be back later in the game. After an incomplete pass on first down, Aaron Jones ran for 9 yards to set up a third and 1 from the San Francisco 14 yard line. Jones was stuffed on the next play, but the Packers decided to go for the QB sneak (Love Shove) play on fourth down. It looked like Love got the first down, but the refs placed the ball in a bad position. They brought the chains out and measured it. It was revealed that he was short of the first down marker (insert facepalm here), forcing the Packers to turn the ball over on downs. From their own 14 yard line, the 49ers went down the field on a scoring drive. However, the Niners should not have scored at all because a missed call happened. On first and 10 from the Green Bay 37 yard line, Brock Purdy threw a pass to nobody while still in the pocket. Since there was not a receiver near that ball, that throw should have been intentional grounding. However, the officials missed the call and allowed the Niners to continue as normal. 2 plays later, Purdy found George Kittle for a 32-yard TD pass. The extra point was good, giving San Francisco a 7-3 lead with 8:42 left in the first half. After the kickoff resulted in a touchback, the Packers started their next drive at their own 25 yard line. On the first play, Jordan Love found Romeo Doubs for a 28-yard pass play that got Green Bay into San Francisco territory. After two Aaron Jones runs that gained a total of 14 yards, the Packers had a first and 10 from the San Francisco 34. Jordan Love ran to his right for three yards before being legally pushed out of bounds at the 31. There was some pushing and shoving after the play, causing the officials to call unnecessary roughness on both sides. Because of that, the penalties don’t matter and it was still second and 7 from the 31. On that play, Love threw incomplete to Dontayvion Wicks. On the next play, Love ran to his left and threw a strike to Romeo Doubs, who was able to keep both feet in bounds to catch the ball at the 9 yard line. After that, the Packers were unable to get into the end zone and were forced to settle for a field goal. The kick by Carlson was good, cutting the lead to 7-6 with 4:09 left in the half. The 49ers were able to get into scoring range before the half ended, but the 48-yard field goal attempt by Jake Moody was blocked by Colby Wooden, keeping the score at 7-6 at halftime.
The Packers defense got to a great start by forcing the 49ers to punt after just three plays. Jayden Reed caught the punt for a fair catch at the Green Bay 25. From there, the Packers offense went on a scoring drive. During the drive, Jordan Love was able to get a first down on a third and one. It wasn’t a first down at first due to bad ball placement by the officials that Matt LaFleur had to throw a challenge flag for. On the next play, there was a mishap on a toss to Aaron Jones and the ball was up for grabs. Thankfully, Jones recovered and the Packers kept possession. Because of that mishap, the Packers faced a second and 21 at their own 34 yard line. On that play, Aaron Jones caught a pass that went for 6 yards, setting up a third and 15. Jordan Love went for a deep pass to Bo Melton on third and 15. The pass went incomplete, but a pass interference penalty was called on San Francisco, giving the Packers a first and 10 at the SF 19. On that first down, Bo Melton caught a touchdown from Jordan Love that gave the Packers the lead again. The extra point was good by Anders Carlson, giving the Packers a 13-7 lead with 9:27 left in the third quarter. That lead only lasted less than 2 minutes due to the 49ers answering with a touchdown of their own. Christian McCaffrey’s TD run was set up by a 32-yard catch and run by George Kittle on the previous play (bad tackling effort on both is those plays by the defense). The extra point by Jake Moody was good, giving San Francisco a 14-13 lead with 7:39 left in the third quarter. Keisean Nixon took the ensuing kickoff into San Francisco territory, but he lost control of the ball. Thankfully, Eric Wilson was able to recover the ball at the 20 yard line. From there, the Packers were able to turn the red zone opportunity into a Tucker Kraft TD catch and an Aaron Jones two-point conversion catch. That made the score 21-14 in Green Bay’s favor with 5:23 left in the quarter. The Packers defense was able to force the 49ers to go three and out on their next drive, allowing Jordan Love and the offense to potentially get another score to make it a double digit lead for Green Bay. Unfortunately, Jordan Love threw a bad pass that bounced off of Tucker Kraft and into the hands of Dre Greenlaw for the interception. The 49ers were able to turn the interception into points with a 52-yard field goal by Jake Moody that was good even in the pouring rain (it was rainy all night). The Packers were unable to convert a third and 2 due to an incomplete pass to Aaron Jones, forcing them to go three and out. Thankfully, the defense kept the 49ers out of field goal range on their next drive as San Francisco’s drive stalled at the Green Bay 40 yard line. Three plays from there went for no yards, with two of those being incomplete passes by Brock Purdy. The punt was fair caught by Jayden Reed at the Green Bay 10 with 9:37 left in the fourth quarter. The first play was an Aaron Jones run that covered 53 yards to the San Francisco 37 yard line. After a neutral zone infraction penalty on Arik Armstead, the Packers had a first and 5 at the 32 yard line. Emanuel Wilson ran for 8 yards on that play and gave the Packers a fresh set of downs at the 24 yard line. Unfortunately, the drive stalled after an incomplete pass on third and 9 from the 23 yard line that was intended for Dontayvion Wicks. Now it was up to Anders Carlson to kick a 41-yard field goal to put the Packers up by 7. The kick went wide left, keeping the score at 21-17 with 6:18 left in the game. With the defense now forced to get back on the field, it was up to them to get a stop or a turnover to keep the game in Green Bay’s favor. Instead, they allowed Brock Purdy and the 49ers offense dink and dunk them to death for a little over 5 minutes. During this drive, the Packers were not using any of their timeouts to give them more time. The long drive ended when Christian McCaffrey ran it in from 6 yards out. Jake Moody made the extra point, giving San Francisco a 24-21 lead with 1:07 left in the game. After the kickoff went for a touchback, the Packers had a chance to either win the game or send it into overtime. Three timeouts remained for the Packers with a little over a minute left on the game clock. Romeo Doubs caught the first pass and got out of bounds at the Green Bay 33 for an 8-yard gain. The second pass went incomplete, setting up a third and 2. Luke Musgrave caught the pass for a first down on third down and the Packers used their first timeout. Now, it was first and 10 from the Green Bay 36. There was still 52 seconds and two timeouts remaining, so there was no need to go for the whole thing yet. Unfortunately, Jordan Love made a huge mistake when he ran to his right and then threw across his body to a double-covered Christian Watson. The pass was picked off by Dre Greenlaw, who returned the pick to the Green Bay 40, ending the game. After one kneel-down, the game was over with the 49ers winning 24-21. With this loss, the Packers’ season is over as they suffer their 5th straight playoff loss to the 49ers.
On offense, the Packers did not play their best game, but they played good in some aspects. For one thing, Jordan Love was not sacked at all by the 49ers defense. Even when Zach Tom had to leave the game in the second half due to injury, the offensive line held its own against a Niners defense that has Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, Chase Young, and Arik Armstead among others. For another thing, the run game produced over 100 yards again, with Aaron Jones having 108 yards on 18 carries. Half of those yards happened when he galloped for 53 yards in the drive that ended with the missed field goal (more on that later). Jordan Love made some good throws, including a corner strike to Romeo Doubs in the first half that got Green Bay inside the SF 10 yard line. Love was not perfect, as he missed a couple of throws that should have been easy completions and he threw a couple of picks. The first interception was on an off throw that bounced off of Tucker Kraft’s hands and into the hands of Dre Greenlaw. The second interception shouldn’t have happened. Throwing across his body into double coverage is a recipe for disaster. That throw was similar to when Brett Favre threw across his body for an interception against New Orleans when he was a Viking in the 2009 NFC Championship Game. Love should have either ran for a couple of yards or threw the pass out of bounds and live another play. I’m sure that Love will be better in terms of limiting those mistakes to a minimum in the future. Some of the play calling in the red zone was not great and the execution was not the best. Even if one of those red zone drives that ended in just 3 points resulted in a touchdown, it would have given the Packers a comfortable position to pull off the upset. Even with the mistakes on offense, the Packers have a bright future on that side of the ball. Jordan Love and the young guys at receiver will definitely get better for next season and make some noise. As for Aaron Jones, I want him to come back in 2024 as a Packer. He is not only a great player on the field, but he is a great leader off the field. He “Carries the G” everywhere he goes and I hope he is a Packer for his entire career. I also hope that David Bakhtiari can play a full season next year for the Packers after he fully recovers from knee surgery. Some other players might leave in the offseason and I wish them all the best in their career. Here’s to a great future for the Packers on offense.
On defense, the Packers played hard for most of the game against a 49ers offense that is used to scoring at will. Even with a quarterback in Brock Purdy, the Niners have a lot of talent on offense, including Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, and Brandon Aiyuk. Samuel got hurt in the first half and missed the second half with a shoulder issue. Even with this talent, the Niners were not perfect during the season. They had some flaws, which was apparent during their Monday night game a few weeks ago against Baltimore. I was hoping for the Packers defense to force the Niners into mistakes similar to that game. They did force the Niners into a couple of three and outs during the game and they got some pressure on Brock Purdy (including a sack). Unfortunately, the defense missed on a couple of opportunities to get an interception. The most glaring one was early in the game. Darnell Savage had an opportunity to repeat what he did against the Cowboys a week earlier. Instead of catching the interception and returning it for a touchdown, Savage let the ball bounce off his hands and into the ground. I was hoping for Savage to redeem himself later in the game, but that opportunity never came again. He had a bad night in terms of missing tackles and not getting into position to intercept a pass. A few plays, including George Kittle’s catch and run and Christian McCaffrey’s first touchdown run, were the result of missed tackles by the defenders. Even with the missed opportunities, the Packers were able to hold the Niners to 17 points deep into the fourth quarter. After the missed field goal by Anders Carlson with over 6 minutes left in the game, I was expecting the defense to play hard and get the stop that was needed. Instead, the Joe Barry soft zone defense returned as the Niners were able to chew out over 5 minutes of the game clock during their go-ahead TD drive. This is a story that has been similar to past losses over the course of the season. Even allowing less than 25 points per game in some of the losses cannot excuse the fact that the defense was Charmin soft when it mattered late in the fourth quarter. To me, the only way that Joe Barry would keep his job was if the Packers went all the way to the Super Bowl in Las Vegas and won it. Now that the Packers season is over, I expect Joe to be fired sometime during this week and for Matt LaFleur to get someone that will have an aggressive mentality. I know that not every defense is perfect and they will give up big plays. However, I would rather see a huge play TD given up than to see the defense get killed by a thousand paper cuts when it matters the most. LaFleur should get the job done if he wants to be a Super Bowl winning head coach in the future.
On Special Teams, the Packers played well until the end, which I’ll get to in a moment. On kickoff returns, Keisean Nixon had a huge return that helped set up a touchdown in the second half. That play would have been disastrous had the fumble not been recovered by Eric Wilson. Wilson’s fumble recovery was huge in that moment. Had the Packers won, that play would have been one of the big reasons why. On punt returns, Jayden Reed thankfully held on to the ball and made his fair catches cleanly. On the other side, the Packers did not allow a huge kickoff or punt return to the 49ers on Saturday night. Even though he was questionable to play due to an illness, Daniel Whelon was able to punt only once against the Niners. That one punt was fair caught by San Francisco inside the SF 30 yard line. Colby Wooden blocked a field goal just before halftime to keep the score at 7-6. With that stuff out of the way, it’s time to talk about Anders Carlson. Over his rookie season, he has not been perfect at all. He did made some big kicks, including the one against Kansas City that put the Packers up by 8 and forced the Chiefs to attempt to get into the end zone (which they failed to do). He also made the game winner against Carolina, although that game should not have come down to that at all (thanks, Joe Barry). Even with the makes, he has missed some kicks during this season. Including the playoff win against Dallas last week, he missed a total of 6 extra point kicks. Entering Saturday night, he was 4 for 8 on kicks between 40 and 49 yards, which should be almost automatic for any kicker, regardless of experience. With over 6 minutes to go in the game and the Packers up by 4, Carlson had a chance to put the Packers up by 7 and force the Niners to try to tie the game rather than win it. The kick was from 41 yards out, but he hooked it to the left. Carlson did miss that important kick, but he is not solely to blame for the loss on Saturday night. The offense had opportunities to get a touchdown rather than settle for a field goal on some occasions. Had they gotten the touchdown instead of a chip-shot field goal on one of those drives, Carlson would not have been given the burden of what happened on Saturday. At the end of the day, I hope that Carlson improves during the offseason. I also kinda hope that the Packers bring someone in as competition during training camp to motivate Carlson to kick well and keep his job. Rich Bisaccia should keep his job this offseason, but the Special Teams unit must improve better than this season (hopefully with Keisean Nixon back as return man). If not, then his seat is hot.
Overall, this was another tough loss for the Packers to the 49ers in the playoffs. They were so close to upsetting the number one seed and punching their ticket to the NFC championship game. Unlike past seasons, I am not totally disappointed with how the season ended. Yes, it ended short of the Super Bowl once again. At the same time, this Packers team was not expected to make it this far. Before the season, I thought that the best thing to happen would be confirmation that Jordan Love is the franchise quarterback for the foreseeable future. It turns out that Love is the guy going forward and he has a bunch of guys to spread the ball too, including Jayden Reed, Bo Melton, Christian Watson, Dontayvion Wicks, Luke Musgrave, Romeo Doubs, Tucker Kraft. All of these guys are either in their first or second season in the NFL and they’re only going to get better. Aaron Jones should be back in the 2024 season, and I am sure the Packers front office will figure out a way to keep him. The defense is filled with young talent, including Rashan Gary, Colby Wooden, Karl Brooks, and Lukas Van Ness. Guys like Jaire Alexander, Preston Smith, and Kenny Clark continue to be great contributors to the defense. Even when Jaire was absent, Carrington Vallentine and Corey Ballentine were able to hold their own in some games. What these guys need is a new guy in charge that will teach an aggressive defense to them and get them to attack the ball and the quarterback more often. As long as the Special Teams unit does their job and keeps the mistakes to a minimum, the Packers should be good there. There is a lot of work to be done in the offseason, but I am confident that the Packers (who were the youngest team in NFL history to win a playoff game) will be back to Super Bowl contention next year and beyond. I’m hopeful for the future of the Green Bay Packers and I’ll be there to support them all of the way. Have a great day, everyone. Go Pack Go!
(Here are the highlights of the game, provided by the NFL’s YouTube page. Click on “Watch on YouTube” if you want to.)
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