The San Francisco 49ers punished Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers Sunday night.
The game of the year was a complete dud from Green Bays perspective anyhow.
The Packers traveled to San Francisco Sunday night for a critical game in determining supremacy in the NFC.
San Francisco spent the next three hours proving its currently in a different weight class than Green Bay.
The 49ers dominated the Packers physically, they executed better all night and routed the Packers, 37-8.
San Francisco improved to 10-1 and maintained the No. 1 seed in the NFC. Green Bay fell to 8-3 and is now tied with Minnesota for first place in the NFC North.
We got outcoached and we got outplayed and weve got to man up, Packers coach Matt LaFleur said. Weve got to look at ourselves critically and get a lot of stuff corrected. Weve got to be honest with ourselves. But it wasnt nearly good enough. And again, give them credit. Thats a good football team. But weve got to be a lot better.
Heres the good, bad and ugly from the San Franciscos beat down of Green Bay.
THE GOOD
ZADARIUS SMITH: Green Bays outside linebacker had 1.5 sacks, pushing his season total to 10.0. ZaDarius Smith joined Preston Smith (10.5) in reaching double digit sacks this season.
The NFL didnt begin recording sacks as an official statistic until 1982. In the time since, the Packers have had two players record double digit sacks in the same season just one other time. That came in 1993, when the great Reggie White notched 13.0 sacks and Bryce Paup had 11.0.
After recording his first sack Sunday, ZaDarius Smith flashed a We Love Eileen undershirt. The message was for the mother of one of the Packers equipment staff members, who is battling cancer.
THE BAD
OFFENSIVE LINE: Green Bays offensive line has been one of the better units in football this season. But that quintet was trampled under foot by San Franciscos terrific defensive line.
Green Bay right tackle Bryan Bulaga left the game early with a knee injury and things only got worse from there.
Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was sacked five times although at least three of those came after Rodgers held the ball too long. Green Bay also couldnt get its run game started.
San Franciscos defensive line which includes four first round draft picks won this matchup in a knockout.
Theyve got some beasts up front. It was tough, Packers wideout Davante Adams said. Weve obviously still got to take care of business, but theyve got a really good team, a really good front.
Its tough but they get paid, too. Theyve got some impact players, but weve still got to come up with a game plan to stop guys like that. We didnt do that today. At the end of the day, thats what its about.
THE DEFENSE: Green Bays defense bent but rarely broke over the first 10 games of the season. The Packers ranked eighth in red zone defense after 10 weeks, allowing touchdowns on just 48.5% of opponents trips inside the 20-yard line.
But the 49ers scored on seven of their 11 possessions Sunday including four touchdowns. San Francisco averaged 7.5 yards per play as 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan got the best of Packers defensive coordinator Mike Pettine.
JK SCOTT: Green Bays second year punter has fallen and he cant get up.
After seven weeks, Scott was averaging 49.2 yards per punt with a net of 44.4. Between Weeks 8-10, though, Scott averaged a pedestrian 36.3 yards per punt with a net of just 34.7.
The bye week didnt help Scott figure out whats ailing him. Scott averaged just 37.2 yards per punt Sunday and put Green Bays defense in difficult situations multiple times after rotten kicks.
Scott, a fifth round pick in 2018, is the latest problem for Green Bays lousy special teams.
Our punt game was not good today, LaFleur said.
DECISIONS, DECISIONS: Green Bay trailed, 10-0, early in the second quarter and had a fourth-and-1 on the 49ers 28. Packers coach Matt LaFleur bypassed the field goal and ran Aaron Jones up the middle instead.
Jones was stuffed for no gain by San Francisco tackle DeForest Buckner, and Green Bays first legitimate scoring opportunity of the night went up in smoke. The Packers are now 1-of-6 on fourth down plays this season.
THE UGLY
AARON RODGERS: In recent seasons, Rodgers has fallen into awful habits where he holds the ball too long, takes too many sacks and refuses to take chances.
All of those warts were back on full display against San Francisco and its brilliant collection of pass rushers.
Rodgers took three first half sacks and was dumped five times in all. Rodgers needed to get the ball out of his hands quickly against the 49ers vicious front, but wasnt interested in playing that way.
That led to Green Bays offense gaining just 60 first half yards in 34 plays, a laughable average of 1.76 yards per play. Rodgers was a miserable 10-of-20 for just 41 yards in the first half, an average of 2.05 yards per attempt, which was the lowest of his career.
Rodgers risk-averse play style was a huge reason Green Bay fell into a 23-0 halftime hole.
Rodgers finished the night just 20-of-33 for 104 yards an average of 3.2 yards per attempt, which was the lowest of his career for an entire game.
We didnt do a whole lot positive tonight, Rodgers said. A lot of the stuff we talked about during the week eliminating negative-yardage plays, obviously, we didnt do that. They got after us up front and covered us good on the back end.
THIRD DOWNS: Green Bay went 1-of-15 on third downs, an embarrasingly bad 6.7%.
We had some of those third-and-extra-longs that we talked about during the week ... the 10-pluses, Rodgers said. They mixed up their scheme a little bit. They played a little more man on early downs, some man on third down. The blitz pattern was pretty similar to what we expected. They just had good rush patterns and covered down, I had to hold onto the ball and they got after us.
DEFENDING TIGHT ENDS: Green Bay has struggled with tight ends all year. San Franciscos George Kittle is arguably the best tight end in football.
Predictably, this was a mismatch of epic proportions.
Kittle, who was returning from knee and ankle injuries, caught six passes for 129 yards, highlighted by a 61-yard, third quarter touchdown. On Kittles TD, he spun Packers cornerback Kevin King like a top and was wide open for an easy score.
On the flip side, Packers tight end Jimmy Graham had one catch for seven yards and also had a crucial drop early in the game. The mismatch in tight end play was one of many reasons this affair was entirely lopsided.
One thing about (49ers coach Kyle) Shanahan, I think everybody knows hes a really good play caller, coordinator and he attacks you, Packers cornerback Tramon Williams said. He attacks leverage. He knows what hes doing. We knew that. We just have to be better.
GREEN BAYS START: Green Bay had gone four straight games a streak of 39 consecutive drives without a turnover. The Packers had also scored the second-most points in the league on their opening drive of the game.
But both of those trends were blown up Sunday.
On the Packers first drive of the game, quarterback Aaron Rodgers was sacked by Fred Warner. Rodgers fumbled and the 49ers Nick Bosa recovered and returned it to Green Bays 2-yard line.
The Packers turnover was their first on an opening possession of a game since Week 17 of 2017 against Detroit. One play later, Tevin Coleman plowed in for a 2-yard touchdown giving San Francisco a 7-0 lead and the rout was on.
Original post:
The Good, Bad And Ugly From The Green Bay Packers Embarrassing Loss To The San Francisco 49ers - Forbes
