In the Green Bay Packers’ 48-32 NFC wild card victory over the Dallas Cowboys last Sunday, the offense scored six touchdowns, and the defense not only set up one touchdown but also scored one on Darnell Savage’s pick-six interception. Love could understand why some fans may have thought the team had it easy. But it was anything but, the starting quarterback for the Packers in his rookie season strongly stated.
There’ll be nothing easy about what comes next, that is for certain. That win over the Cowboys earned the Packers (10-8) the right to face the No. 1-seeded San Francisco 49ers (12-5) in Saturday night’s NFC divisional playoff game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
The 49ers are arguably the best team in the league, having finished the regular season with one of the NFL’s best offenses (No. 2 in total offense, No. 3 in scoring offense) and best defenses (No. 8 in total defense, No. 3 in scoring defense). And while Love and head coach Matt LaFleur agreed that the win over the Cowboys was the team’s best, most complete performance of the season, beating the 49ers will take an even more impressive effort.
“We’re going to need a better game, for sure. Absolutely,” LaFleur said before the team departed for California on Friday. “You can always get better, right? That’s our mindset. We’re going against a great opponent and we’re going to need to be at our best.” With that in mind, here are three things to watch.
Everybody remembers what transpired in overtime when Hasselbeck was picked off by cornerback Al Harris, who went on to win the game with a walk-off interception return for a score. When LaFleur has taken the ball to begin a game this season, things have gone somewhat more smoothly.
Just as he did in his team’s Thanksgiving Day victory in Detroit — and, ostensibly, in the next week’s win over the Kansas City Chiefs, although the Chiefs won the coin toss that day and elected to defer — LaFleur had his game-day captains choose taking the football after winning the opening toss against Dallas. According to research done by the Packers’ Weston Hodkiewicz, Green Bay had won 39 opening coin tosses in LaFleur’s tenure before that Thanksgiving game.
Know how many times he took the ball? Zero. Zilch. Nada.
After taking the ball last Sunday, the offense then marched 75 yards in 12 plays against the Cowboys en route to the first of veteran running back Aaron Jones’ three touchdowns on the day.
The tone was set, even if the offense had to withstand the initial fervor of the 93,799 fans at AT&T Stadium. It’s particularly difficult when traveling. Veteran right guard Jon Runyan stated, “You kind of feel like you’re fighting uphill even more if you don’t start fast.” That was one of the loudest audiences I’ve ever heard during the opening drive and first third down. The sound was overwhelming. Really, you were unable to hear anything. The crowd became incredibly silent as the game progressed through the second and third quarters.
There’s more to it than just “gut feel,” despite LaFleur’s assertion that it mostly boils down to that when taking the ball. It involves being aware of your opponent’s capabilities, assessing the
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