Post Game Packers fall 24-21 to San Fran

- Defensively, just did not do enough, particularly on the last drive, to disrupt Purdy. The pass rush was close numerous times throughout the game, but this was a game where you just have to get home on the QB. We need to upgrade the safety position without a doubt.

- Zach Tom's injury correlated to Jordan Love becoming more uncomfortable and erratic later on in the game. That one hurt. O-line depth is still an offseason priority.

- I hope they can keep Aaron Jones around for another year or two, it's constantly obvious how much he brings to the offense.

- When Anders missed the kick, I think 90% of Packer nation could smell the wind blowing 24-21. Unfortunately, it's been really 10-15 years of playoff heartbreakers.

- On the plus side, this team in the last couple of months has beaten Detroit, beaten Kansas City, beaten Dallas, and went toe to toe with the 49ers, improving every step along the way and giving a lot of hope for the future. It was a fun ride and it could have been bigger, but this team should be in a Super Bowl within 2 years. But they have to get it done in crunch time, on the field. Unfortunately in this one, their youth was obvious in crunch time. Can only hope these will be valuable learning experiences that help them not come up short next time
 
Tough game to lose. We outplayed the 49ers for almost the whole night.

San Fran outplayed us in the 4th and it really shouldn’t have mattered. If Carlson makes the FG we have a minute to get in position to kick a FG for the win. Love wouldn’t have had to force the last throw. He could have pulled it down and ran for 10 yards.

We just couldn’t finish the deal.
 
Here is how I really feel after last night..

Last nights loss doesn't really sting much. It wasn't a spot anybody expected to be in with the youngest team in the league. Anything I believe was a mistake in last nights game does not detract from my optimism for next year and the years after. If your expectation is to play mistake free football in order to win, your expectations aren't realistic. Mistakes are going to happen, and mistakes are how you learn.

I am way more satisfied with this season than I expected to be in August, and I am way more satisfied with the results of last nights game than I expected at noon yesterday. Nobody is going to want to play this team next year. This young offense is going to be prolific to another level next year. This defense is better than we gave them credit for. Were there some puzzling strategic defensive calls? Sure, but much of the criticism of the defense isn't fair IMO. Upset at giving up 5 yard outs on 3rd and 2? Fair..

Hit on a couple key pieces in the draft, and this defense could be a really good complimentary piece to an offense that is going to put up points. Some of that will only fuel the hate towards the defense is they will out of necessity play different and fans will complain that they are giving up yards with the lead, but that's how you play with a multi score lead in the 2nd half..

I was cautiously optimistic going into this season with expectations to go 6-11 to 7-10. I didn't think 9-8 was realistic. My expectations next year won't be very cautious. We will see how the offseason goes, but 11-6 to 13-4 I think is where you have to be thinking at this point, though with probably a slightly tougher schedule so the improvement may be dampered a little by that. THIS years team was a handful of plays away from 11 or 12 wins. I think the young players learned a ton this year, and I think the front office and coaching staff learned a ton about the talent and leadership on this young team. This wasn't just learning how talented JL was. It was that, and he is as talented as we could have hoped. It was learning what kind of leader he is, and he's that too.

The future is brighter than I could have imagined this past offseason with wild optimism. Talk this offseason of Super Bowl runs the next few years isn't just crazy fan talk. There is reason to think that way, and I didn't expect to feel like that until at least after 2024. GO PACK GO!!!!
 
Defense wore down. And that’s a really tough matchup for Love. SF has some really good, veteran players in the back 7 and they knocked him out of his comfort zone with their coverages.

All those young receivers and tight ends and Love got so many valuable snaps. They’re going to be able to really expand the offense next year. The OL is young and in tact. The offenses arrow is pointing straight up.

As much as we like the receivers, it’s so rare to have two good tight ends. Kraft and Musgrave are so athletic and talented. They’re going to be unstoppable once they know what they’re doing.

Great season!!
 
It’s the small spot on a kicker’s foot, no bigger than the size of a quarter, that can make all the difference. Seasons hang on this spot. Careers are made, sometimes broken.

So many nuances influence kicking a football through two uprights. As Green Bay Packers rookie kicker Anders Carlson aligned his 41-yard field goal attempt with 6 minutes, 21 seconds left in Saturday night’s fourth quarter, a kick that would set the tone for everything that followed, he checked the flags. A crosswind had been blowing all night through spitting, often pouring rain, pushing the football right to left.

Long snapper Matt Orzech dug his toes in the ground before the snap.

Holder Daniel Whelan waited for the football.

Carlson focused on that spot.
It was elusive for him all season, unleashing a string of missed kicks, a repetition that built this gnawing doom as they continued. Before Orzech even snapped the football Saturday night, you felt it. This 41-yarder, a kick that could give the Packers a more-secure, 7-point lead, should have been automatic. It wasn’t. Because it hasn’t been. Instead, Carlson’s miss was uncomfortably predictable. He missed a kick in 10 of his final 12 games, including each of his final five. In that five-game stretch, each of his misses came within 45 yards.

When the football left Carlson’s foot on his final kick this season, it started left and stayed there. From the start, he never gave his kick a chance.

“The wind was right to left,” Carlson said, “so I knew to play it a little right, middle. Off my foot, it just came more left than I wanted it to. There at the end, it took a little tail outside where I wanted it to.”

That small spot on a kicker’s foot changes things. The Packers outplayed the NFC’s top seed during most of their divisional-round playoff matchup Saturday night. Then, suddenly, the San Francisco 49ers had the ball and the one thing no opponent can give in the postseason, a second chance. They marched 69 yards over 12 plays, draining the clock until running back Christian McCaffrey scored the game-winning touchdown with 1:07 left.

Had Carlson made his kick, McCaffrey’s 6-yard run would have only tied the score. The Packers would have 67 seconds to give their kicker the second chance, this time a potential game-winning field goal. Instead, failing to put those 3 points on the board meant the 49ers were in the driver’s seat to the NFC championship game, handing the Packers a 24-21 loss.

Even worse, Carlson’s miss sealed what everyone around the Packers dreaded for months now, if not all the way back to training camp. With Carlson failing to make kicks at the consistency required in professional football, this season was always in danger of ending prematurely off his foot. Coach Matt LaFleur, so despondent afterward he was unusually subdued, tried to preemptively protect the rookie.

“It’s never one play,” LaFleur said in his opening statement, before anyone could even ask him about the one play. “Because I know, I’m sure, a lot of it’s going to the missed field goal, but there were plenty of opportunities.”

LaFleur was right. It wasn’t about one play. The Packers’ loss Saturday night traced directly to general manager Brian Gutekunst’s strategy this spring. In an offseason defined by renewal, rebuilding around quarterback Jordan Love after trading Aaron Rodgers to the New York Jets, Gutekunst’s list of priorities was perhaps impossibly long. He couldn’t get to everything, specifically a veteran kicker and reinforcements at safety.

Gutekunst trimmed money at what can be a luxury position for young teams not expected to contend, choosing not to re-sign Mason Crosby. He waited until the seventh round of the draft to address a glaring need at safety, meaning there would be a hole on the back end of the Packers defense. No biggie. This was a rebuilding year with Love.

A rookie kicker wasn’t going to be lining up for field goals in January with a potential Super Bowl run on the line. The Packers weren’t a blue-chip safety away from winning a championship.

Except, it turned out, they actually were.

San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle picks up 32 yards on a reception after a missed tackle by Green Bay Packers safety Jonathan Owens.


LaFleur was right his team’s loss didn’t hinge on one kick, not only because this was more about offseason strategy, but also the explosive plays his safeties allowed on a night the Packers defense otherwise played well. There was safety Darnell Savage, dropping a potential pick-6 against Brock Purdy on the 49ers first drive. Again there was Savage, who declined to comment before leaving the postgame locker room, getting beat deep against 49ers tight end George Kittle on a 32-yard touchdown. Same play, there was safety Anthony Johnson Jr. – the rookie seventh-round pick – providing double coverage on 49ers receiver Brandon Aiyuk’s underneath route instead of helping cover Kittle deep.

Third-and-6 in the third quarter, there was safety Jonathan Owens allowing a wide-open catch to Kittle, then failing to tackle him in the open field before the tight end gained another 32 yards. One play later, there was Savage letting running back Christian McCaffrey run through his tackle for a 39-yard touchdown.

Kittle led the 49ers with 81 yards on his four catches. As the Packers move forward into their future now, the 49ers appear most directly in the way of Super Bowl contention. If not them, perhaps the Detroit Lions, whose offense got a major boost this season with rookie tight end Sam LaPorta.

It means getting better at safety this offseason, finding someone who can cover an elite tight end.

“He’s all right, man,” Owens said. “He tried to stiff arm me, but you’ve just got to get him down. It’s a want to, and it take everyone. Not just one person. If someone does miss – you never plan on missing – but if someone does miss, everyone running to the ball. That is what we tried to do.

“Yeah, it was tough, but it’s the NFL. Guys are going to make plays.”

Gutekunst should be lauded for how he built a roster, the NFL’s youngest chock-full of rookies and second-year players, that could make it this far, this fast. Nobody thought the Packers would be one of the NFL’s best teams in a season that was supposed to be a rebuild, but that’s where they finished. There’s no mistaking what the Packers are expected to do next season, a year in which they’ll return to their usual status as an NFC favorite. And there’s no uncertainty with what Gutekunst must do this spring for his team to get there.

It's the two things he didn’t do last spring: improve the kicking and safety positions.

“It’s tough to do it to these guys,” Carlson said. “That’s what hurts the worst. They’ve got a bright future ahead of them, but it definitely hurt.”
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The thing about that article on the Carlson article, and I can’t believe I’m about to say this, is I think it's a little unfair to Gutey. There was no way Gutey was going to be able to fill all the holes last offseason. He couldn't even if he wanted to. So it's not like he knew there were areas of need and ignored them, he just could fill all of them even if he did think this team was playoff bound.
 
Cheesedog said:
The thing about that article on the Carlson article, and I can’t believe I’m about to say this, is I think it's a little unfair to Gutey. There was no way Gutey was going to be able to fill all the holes last offseason. He couldn't even if he wanted to. So it's not like he knew there were areas of need and ignored them, he just could fill all of them even if he did think this team was playoff bound.
Click to expand...
True, but there were other kickers out there both in the draft and the street. It was about Rich wanting so and so.....Rich's whining has in my opinion played out. 27th-ranked teams or what we paid him isn't good enough. Gute had enough $ and draft capital to upgrade that S spot before the trade deadline. All this will come out in the wash here at the end-of-season reviews internally.
 
Wow a lot of us fans are really entitled and spoiled. What sane person would've thought after that first Lions and the Raiders game we'd be minutes from going to the NFC championship game? No-one would have believed it. The coaching staff and front office didn't see this coming. That's why we were sellers at the trade deadline. Sul would've got a few picks in this game.

After the Raiders game most of us myself included were on the tank for a top 10 pick bandwagon. This young team nearly knocked off the best team in the conference. This 49ers team is built to win a SB now.

The Packers are rebuilding a SB team for the future and learning how to win games with rookies and 2nd year guys. Most of these guys including our QB never played in a playoff game or felt this kind of pressure on the road. We beat a veteran Dallas team that never losses at home and nearly beat a veteran 49ers team with a stacked roster at home.

This young inexperienced team had the hardest road to the SB, and this particular 49ers team is better than the ones Rodgers lost to. You have to catch some breaks and have a little luck to go all the way and we didn't catch them, no pun intended.

The NFL is rooting for both #1 seeds to advance to the SB. There were a lot of questionable calls that we didn’t get. Facemask on Jones, offsides on the 49ers defense that would've kept a crucial drive alive. Clock at 0 when McCaffrey scored that long TD.

At the end of the day inexperience and the usual suspects like "Savage" came back to bite us in the end. Again Joe Barry doesn't deserve to keep his job but he did a great job in these playoff games considering what he was up against and what he was working with on the backend. To hold that offense to 7 points at halftime was a phenomenal job.

Very proud of this team. Nothing to be upset about. I didn't have this team as a serious SB contender until 2025 or 2026. No-one saw this coming and you’re lying if you did. Love and these receivers will only get even better from here which is scary to think about.

If we finally get the defensive side of the ball worked out this team is in the SB next year no matter what Chicago does. I'm really interested how our cap space situation will look going forward with the Love extension and what players we retain and let walk.
 
I guess what gnaws at me is, every season is different. And just like when Love was up and down and I was saying that progress isn't linear, the same holds for the trajectory of this team. They made an unexpected run this year but taking a next step next year isn't guaranteed. If this year was a surprise, next year may well be a huge disappointment. I know they weren't supposed to even go this far but now that they have, I wanted them to take advantage of the opportunity because another isn't guaranteed. My only hope is that coming this close drives them crazy and drives them all to get better.
 
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