SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The Packers were never supposed to make it this far, but this one is going to sting.
The final score says what it does — 49ers 24, Packers 21 — but Green Bay outplayed San Francisco on Sunday. Forget that, on paper, this was a No. 7 seed vs. a No. 1 seed. Those were two evenly matched teams that are two of the NFL’s best, both now and in the future. And unlike the last time the Packers played at Levi’s Stadium in the playoffs, a 37-20 49ers win that was far more lopsided than the final score indicated, Green Bay should’ve won this game but let it slip away.
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The Packers dropped two interceptions, one by safety Darnell Savage and one by cornerback Keisean Nixon, both of which would’ve set the Packers up with prime field position and in Savage’s case, potentially another pick-six. Tackling woes resurfaced, most prominently when the 49ers went 71 yards in two plays thanks to back-breaking whiffs by safety Jonathan Owens on tight end George Kittle’s 32-yard catch-and-run and by Savage on running back Christian McCaffrey’s 39-yard touchdown scamper up the middle that gave the 49ers a 14-13 lead in the third quarter. Rookie kicker Anders Carlson missed yet another kick, this one a 41-yarder with the Packers leading by four with 6:18 remaining in the game, making it 10 of the last 12 games in which Carlson missed a kick. And after being arguably the NFL’s best quarterback since midseason, Jordan Love’s glass slipper turned into a pumpkin late in the game.
Oh wow… Darnell Savage, who had a pick-6 last week vs Dallas, wasn't able to snag this one. pic.twitter.com/tpo1xDKadc
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) January 21, 2024
“I think part of the reason it stings so bad right now is we fully believed and fully expected to win this game,” said head coach Matt LaFleur, who has been eliminated from the postseason three times by his buddy Kyle Shanahan in four postseason trips. “Give San Francisco credit. They made more plays in some of those critical situations down the stretch. It’s a tough football team, but I felt like we had plenty of opportunities to kind of put the game out of reach and unfortunately just didn’t do enough.”
It wasn’t just late in the game when Love and the offense shot itself in the foot.
The Packers made it inside the 49ers’ 15-yard line on each of their first three offensive drives, but they only scored six points on those three trips. On the one that resulted in no points, running back Aaron Jones was stuffed on third-and-1 from the 14-yard line before Love was stonewalled on a fourth-and-1 sneak. The Packers ranked 19th in the league during the regular season with only 51.6 percent of their red-zone drives finishing in the end zone. Against the 49ers, the Packers started 0-for-3 and finished 2-for-5, left to lament the opportunities left on the table by an offense that has been humming for the majority of the last two months.
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Love was asked after the game what he thought the biggest difference was in Green Bay’s loss.
“I think it was early on,” he said. “We obviously didn’t do a good enough job in the red zone, didn’t come away with enough points down there. We started getting going a little bit later in the second half, things like that, but it was too little too late.”
Jordan Love: “We had an opportunity to win that game and didn’t capitalize on it.” pic.twitter.com/DOoWMme48d
— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) January 21, 2024
While LaFleur said the Packers’ defense was “fantastic” in allowing 24 points to the NFL’s No. 3 scoring offense during the regular season, defensive coordinator Joe Barry’s unit left plenty to be desired, too. Up 3-0, Savage had a pass that might’ve given the Packers a 10-0 lead well within his grasp before it fell to the grass. Former Packers cornerback Rasul Douglas tweeted after the play, “Sav you can’t drop those Brodie.” Nixon, too, let quarterback Brock Purdy off the hook when one of his several errant throws on the night sailed right past the cornerback’s hands in 49ers territory. Not only did Owens and Savage miss critical tackles, but defensive lineman Devonte Wyatt had McCaffrey wrapped up at the line of scrimmage on a play that would’ve set up third-and-10. Instead, McCaffrey wiggled loose for five yards, and on the next play, Purdy hit tight end Kittle for a 32-yard touchdown as the tight end lost Savage to give the 49ers a 7-3 lead.
And then there’s the kicker situation.
Asked about yet another miss by Carlson (against the Cowboys) last Wednesday, special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia shut down the conversation and instead said he’d answer any questions about the upcoming game against the 49ers.
With 6:18 left in the game, Carlson missed a 41-yard attempt wide left that would’ve given the Packers a seven-point lead, wasting a 53-yard run by Jones to begin a drive that started at their 10-yard line. Instead, the 49ers marched 69 yards in 12 plays over five minutes and 11 seconds for the game-winning score. Not only did the Packers keep Carlson as their kicker during his struggles — he missed six field goals and five extra points over the season’s final 12 games, with one PAT blocked — but they never brought in competition from when they drafted Carlson in April until he played a part in their season-ending on Sunday.
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That is sure to change this coming offseason. Bisaccia didn’t want to answer questions from reporters last week, but he’ll have to answer tougher ones of his own as he tries to best position Packers special teams for the future.
“I think if we had the answer,” LaFleur said of his kicker, “we would have fixed it.”
“I knew the wind was right to left and my goal was to play a little right-middle and just the contact off my foot started a little too much left,” Carlson said. “By then, it played off the post and just gotta have better contact … Operation was great, blocking was great. It’s all me.”
LaFleur made sure to note that the loss wasn’t entirely on Carlson, though his miss might loom most large, and he’s right. After an otherworldly second half of the season that saw him throw 21 touchdowns to just one interception from Week 11 through the wild-card round, Love faltered late in the third quarter and in the fourth. On third-and-11 from the Packers’ 48-yard line with 2:15 remaining in the third, Love threw behind tight end Tucker Kraft on a check-down that seemingly would’ve gained at least seven yards and potentially enticed the Packers to go for it on fourth down up seven. Instead, the ball deflected off Kraft’s left hand and fell into the grasp of linebacker Dre Greenlaw. The 49ers got three points out of their ensuing drive to cut Green Bay’s lead to four.
“I missed and was a little bit behind him,” Love said. “He was running a crossing route and missed it.”
On the Packers’ next drive, Love again threw behind a receiver over the middle. This time, it was Jones on third-and-2 to force a Green Bay punt. The 49ers didn’t score on their ensuing drive, but it was another opportunity for the Packers to gain a two-score lead gone to waste.
“The one to Aaron was off-schedule,” Love said. “He stayed on the move and we weren’t on the same page there and missed that one as well.”
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And on the Packers’ final drive of the game, the Packers faced a first-and-10 from their 36-yard line with 52 seconds left. With edge rusher Nick Bosa in his face just inside the 30-yard line number, Love threw deep across his body over the middle after scrambling. The pass had no chance of reaching wide receiver Christian Watson. Greenlaw darted across from the left side of the field for his second interception in the last 17 minutes of game time — Love hadn’t thrown an interception since Week 14 and only one since Week 10 — to seal the game.
Former Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers once said that quarterbacks coach Tom Clements has three mortal sins of playing the position: throwing late over the middle, making blind throws and making predetermined reads. The first one is exactly what Love did to end Green Bay’s season.
“I don’t know if I had an opportunity to be able to run, maybe get out of bounds,” Love said. “But force it across the middle late, which is a mortal sin, and it cost us.”
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📱 NFL+ // https://t.co/KTh0i4oaLh pic.twitter.com/vFYhu65gWl— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) January 21, 2024
Despite the cruelty of Sunday’s loss given how close the Packers were to the most unlikely of NFC Championship Game appearances, they still have plenty to be proud of this season. Not only did they find their franchise quarterback and a litany of young offensive weapons to surround him with for at least the next couple of years, but they became the first No. 7 seed to win a playoff game and in doing all that, gave no reason to believe the Packers can’t be regular Super Bowl contenders in the near future.
“The future,” was the two-word answer given by Nixon when asked, “What is this Packers team?”
And that, after however long the sting of another debilitating season-ending loss to the 49ers takes to subside, should be the big-picture takeaway from a wildly successful Packers season.
“I know it’s hard right now to kind of see through everything,” LaFleur said. “I am proud of these guys, but it’s more just the ability to keep competing and stick together. There were some tough moments in our season. We lost some tough games. And this is one of them, quite frankly. But I’ve got the utmost confidence that the guys in that locker room, our staff, everybody will stick together.”
GO DEEPER
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(Photo of Jordan Love after Saturday’s Packers loss: Dan Powers / USA Today)
