Coming into the game as a heavy underdog, the Green Bay Packers had to be at their best against the San Francisco 49ers. Things were even for much of the game, and the Packers appeared poised to pull the upset. However, there were a few crucial mistakes that led to their late demise.
Here’s why Green Bay’s season ended early.
The Interception
First and foremost, the interception that Jordan Love threw with under one minute to play was the dagger that sealed the Packers’ fate. After playing his best football of the season from the start of November until now, Love was a big reason for the Packers’ post-season run. His pocket presence and ability to escape pressure were two of the strongest aspects of his game. Having the propensity to look downfield, too, early in his progressions also helped generate explosive plays. The young receivers for Green Bay exceeded expectations. The team should feel good about Dontayvion Wicks and Jayden Reed being fixtures going forward. But the play of Love was what drove this offense.
The interception, then, becomes all the more perplexing and frustrating for Packers fans and the team. Green Bay was able to overcome Love’s first interception that he threw late in the third quarter. But the last one Love threw was the dagger for Green Bay. Going into the game against San Francisco, Love had thrown only one interception in his last nine games. In that time, he had thrown 23 touchdowns and hadn’t completed less than 60% of his passes in a single game (per pro-football-reference). The Packers offense received a boost from Aaron Jones being healthy, but Love’s play largely carried the offense.
Missed Kick
As a rookie, kicker Anders Carlson had his ups and downs. Throughout the season, Green Bay was not forced to rely on Carlson or their special teams to swing games. All six of Carlson’s attempts throughout the season when Green Bay was tied were good (per NFL.com). His percentage when the Packers were trailing was much worse, though. Out of his 15 attempts on the season when Green Bay was behind, Carlson converted only 11 of his kicks (per NFL.com). While Green Bay had a lead when Carlson missed his lone field goal attempt of the game, the pressure of the situation likely had something to do with the miss.
That missed kick became the difference in the score for the Packers. Had Carlson made his field goal attempt, San Francisco would have tied Green Bay with their final score of the game instead of taking the lead. Football is a game of inches, and countless plays make huge impacts on the game, but this missed kick proved to be costly for the team. It became one of the reasons Green Bay’s season ended early.
Lafleur’s Boldness
Again, football is a game of inches. But head coach Matt Lafleur faced a big decision at the beginning of the second quarter. The Packers were driving in 49ers territory and faced a huge 4th &1 attempt. Instead of calling timeout, or even trotting out Carlson, Lafleur elected to run a quarterback sneak with Love. The sneak emulated Philadelphia’s famous “tush push” but failed when Love came up short. A more sound approach could have been running a different type of quarterback sneak, or handing off to Aaron Jones.
It’s easy to look back and pick out one or two plays that made massive impacts on the game, but both the miss by Carlson and the failed quarterback sneak effectively took six points off the board for Green Bay. Between those two plays and Love’s final interception, there were three reasons the Packers season ended early.
Main Photo: [Dan Powers/USA Today Network-Wisconsin] – USA Today Sports
