Green Bay Packers vs San Francisco 49ers -  Previewing the 2020 NFC Championship Game

The lead-up

The Packers entered 2019 with their first back-to-back losing seasons in the current format of the NFC North. Despite throwing 25 touchdowns compared to just two picks in 2018, people started to doubt Aaron Rodgers as one of the premier quarterbacks in the game and the relationship between him and their new first-time head coach Matt LaFleur was heavily discussed as well. Green Bay kicked off the 100th NFL season with a classic rivalry against the Bears and made a statement right away with their retooled defense in a 10-3 victory over the then-reigning division champs.

After a 3-0 start, the Eagles came into Lambeau Field and quickly changed a lot of people’s views changed after they gave up 34 points in a loss. The Pack did recover with four straight wins, but then suffered two defeats over the next three games – both on the West Coast and including a 37-8 demolition by the 49ers. They would close out the season with five straight wins, including the other three NFC North teams, but were mainly looked at as one of the worst 13-3 teams in recent memory – which actually has some truth to it since their point differential of +63 is the lowest for any team with that kind of record.

Having to climb back from a 17-3 halftime deficit to the David Blough-led Lions in week 17 didn’t help that matter either. However, thanks to tie-breakers over the Saints, they got a bye week and came out strong against the Seahawks in the Divisional Round. The pass rush made life hard for Russell Wilson and after Seattle started making a run in the second half, Rodgers closed out the game with two big third-down conversions (even if the second one brought some controversy with it).

Coming into the season after four straight years below .500, the 49ers were buried behind the Rams and Seahawks in terms of odds for being the next NFC West champs and while I actually had them winning the division in my preseason predictions, I didn’t even think they would go 13-3 and earn the number one seed in the conference. San Francisco came out of the gates smoking hot, starting the year off 8-0 and if it wasn’t for a couple of unlucky bounces of the ball and a missed field goal in overtime, they would not have suffered their first loss against the Seahawks either.

Two weeks later they put that whooping on their opponents for the Championship Round and even the following game at Baltimore against what was then viewed as the class of the league, it took a long field goal with time running out to beat this team. After an epic 48-46 shootout win at New Orleans, injuries started piling up for this squad in the Bay. The defense without a few starters allowed an average of 27 points over the final three weeks of regular-season action, which led to a loss against Atlanta on the last play of the game and a tackle that put the Seahawks just a couple of inches short of taking the NFC West from the Niners. Nobody benefitted from that extra week of rest more than San Francisco, as they managed to bring back Dee Ford, Kwon Alexander and Jaquiski Tartt on defense, which led to immediate success, as they managed to hold the Vikings, who were just coming off an upset win over the Saints, to only ten points and they easily advanced to the NFC title game.

Packers offense vs. 49ers defense

Aaron Rodgers

This Packers offense has looked a lot different under Matt LaFleur. While Rodgers is still the star of the show, they are much more balanced in terms of run-pass splits and don’t ask the ultra-talented quarterbacks to always make those difficult throws he is capable of. While they were pretty static under Mike McCarthy for several years and kind of predictable in their West Coast passing concepts, LaFleur’s plan is much more about pre-snap movement and misdirection.

Aaron Jones has turned into a star, racking up over 1500 yards and a league-lead tying 19 touchdowns from scrimmage. Coming from the Mike Shanahan tree, the young packers head-man uses many similar plays as Kyle does with San Francisco. It’s a lot outside the zone, bootlegs, and throwback screens while using a good variety of personnel sets, instead of always spreading the field. With that knowledge of the offense, however, 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh was all over the Packers offense in their first matchup. They held Rodgers to 20 of 33 for 104 yards, giving him an average of just over 3.1 yards per attempt, while the offense only scored once all game in a 37-8 beatdown. The usually elusive Green Bay quarterback was sacked five times and they were an abysmal 1 of 15 on third downs.

There's absolutely nothing to get for the Packers running the ball from 21 or 12 personnel and they had no success going play-action out of those looks with max-protection and two receivers out in the pattern. That consistently put them behind the sticks and the 49ers’ stunts really made it tough for the Packers O-line to get hands-on everybody, not only creating disruption in the run game but also getting someone free before the Rodgers could get the ball out to the deeper routes that were needed.

At the same time, not a single screen to the backs worked because the Niners had their linebackers run them down with their speed and all those guys on the D-line show excellent pursuit. So for the Packers to get more into a rhythm, they need to take what’s available to them. The Niners is all about keeping everything inside and in front of them. They pretty much surrendered any out-routes by the slot receivers from doubles sets, even if their corners made the receivers pay for catching them, and they mostly put two safeties deep when Davante Adams lined up in the slot, which should create more space underneath.

I would also like to see Green Bay put Adams in a slightly condensed split with a tight-end inside of him to work those quick out-routes against what pretty much is one-on-one coverage at that point against cover-three. After completing that a couple of times you can come back with the out-and-up since Rodgers excels at those rainbow throws and Davante is great at tracking them. Because of how they usually play it, motioning into bunch sets and throwing screens that way has been pretty successful against San Fran.

So throwing the ball on early downs and getting some easy completions to stay ahead of the sticks is key, but you obviously can’t go away from the run game, because when you don’t connect on some of those throws and get into third-and-long that is when that pass rush of the Niners really cranks it up. Early on the Packers should try to get to the edge with some jet sweeps and get that defense to move laterally instead of allowing them to attack upfield against those zone schemes. The best run of the night on that side of the ball came when Green Bay was in a bunch set with a tight-end on the opposite side and they faked the jet sweep and got the ball to Jones on a toss the other way.

With that being said, just beating San Francisco schematically is almost impossible because of the talent they have on defense. They just had a lot of success against a similar offense in the Vikings, where they kept Dalvin Cook under 20 yards rushing while also completely taking away the bootleg game with the backside edge defender attacking Kirk Cousins and the linebacker to that side plastering the easy check-down option, like a tight-end coming across or slipping into the flats.

While they don’t really play a lot of man-coverage on early downs, the one thing Green Bay can take away from their Divisional Round game is that deep ball to Stefon Diggs for the Vikes’ only touchdown, when they burned Ahkello Witherspoon on third-and-short, where they do switch to more man. The Niners are very good layering the pass rush and making it tough for quarterbacks to throw with rhythm and step around the pocket. That means Rodgers can’t be as antsy as he was last time and keep himself in more of a throw-ready posture if they do get into long-yardage situations.

49ers offense vs. Packers defense

Jimmy Goroppolo

To me, Kyle Shanahan is the premier offensive play-caller in the game today. Not only is his scheme and all the stuff he does off it very complete, but what I really appreciate him is the way he puts together game-plans specifically suited towards his opponents and how he continues to build around the things that have made them successful. That’s how he made Matt Ryan an MVP in Atlanta and why he is now 21-4 with the 49ers in games that he has an adequate quarterback in Jimmy Garoppolo from start to finish. When you re-watch that first game against the Packers, Shanahan ran circles around the Packers defense.

While having George Kittle and Kyle Juszczyk on pretty much all base downs, he still made things easy for his quarterback by identifying coverages through different motions and it created a lot of easy completions on in-breaking routes to the voids that were created. That was especially the case on RPOs, where they could isolate the back-side linebacker. While the Green Bay defense should see that a lot in practice, the Niners were also highly effective faking zone to the overloaded side and then hitting Kittle on a deep over off the bootleg or use a receiver in that role and have the tight-end come into the flats of the split zone action. Overall the San Francisco offense was just extremely efficient, scoring 37 points on just 45 total plays, even if a strip-sack on the first Packer possession set them up with first-and-goal right away.

With that being said, Mike Pettine’s tendencies and transparency for his defense made things a lot easier on them. While the Packers do play a multitude of coverages, what they run is very dependent on personnel sets, field positions, and situations. Despite using true man-coverage (mainly cover-one) on just 30 percent of their snaps, most of those calls came on early downs and on the opposite side of the field. More telling however is that 80 percent of their snaps in man-coverage came against 11 personnel, while they use different types of zone looks on almost two-thirds of plays against 12 or 21 personnel.

Coaches who have figured that out now only needed some motions to confirm the looks they were given and when you look at teams like the Niners or Chargers, they just shredded the Green Bay DBs with shallow crosses and double-moves. That’s how a top ten defense on paper like they have up there has allowed 15 passes of 40+ yards through the regular season – second-worst in the league. Something San Francisco did in the first matchup, for example, was motioning to two-by-two sets with one tight end. After seeing the defender trailing the receiver coming across the formation and having Adrian Amos line up over Kittle with outside leverage, the Packers were already done. They ran a drag route with the tight-end and had the back go into the flats, with forced both Amos and the linebacker inside of him to work over the top of those defenders needed to work over the top of the action and it made for some easy completions.

If Green Bay wants to have any chance of keeping Shanahan from exploiting their secondary, they need to break tendencies and force Jimmy G to hold the ball, which allows their pass rush to get home. If you give those guys clean looks all game long, you don’t really have a chance to slow them down and they don’t mind running the ball into the ground once they show you some pass plays early on. They just proved that against the Vikings, when the put together 47 rushing attempts and once had a drive where they handed it off eight straight times until reaching the end-zone.

That also means finding a way to stop that run scheme the Niners used in the first matchup, where they fake the jet sweep one way and take advantage of the edge defender having to stay wide by sending a puller to kick him even further out. Whether it’s having those outside backers crash inside more aggressively and trusting the safeties to come up or implementing switch calls when you’d need to cross defenders, you have to take away the easy path to success. If you are not always in perfect position and Jimmy G finds a way to carve you up on the fly, I can live much better with, especially after what I just saw from him in terms of staring down some receivers and trying to fit balls into windows that just aren’t really there.

Throw some different looks at him and make him pat the ball. The Smith brothers have come through for the Pack all year long, but what they do on the back-end will dictate how many opportunities they get to impact the game. With all that being said, if Shanahan all of a sudden pulls out a change-up call himself like he did in the last game, there is not much you can do about it. The Niners ran a bootleg out of a condensed formation and they had Kelce fake going on the deep out like he has many times, but on that play, he broke it back to the post and was wide open for a 61-yard score.

X-factors

Packers – Allen Lazard and Kenny Clark

As far as X-factors go for the Packers, you could pretty much go with any receiver not named Davante Adams. While I expect Rodgers to work him against whoever they have him matched up against, they will need somebody to win some matchups outside the numbers. They need to not only pick up easy yardage with short completions against the off-coverage by the cornerbacks but also lure San Francisco out of the amount of single-high sets if they want to have any chance of being productive in the run game. Allen Lazard has flashed in that fashion before and I have also seen him set some crucial crackback blocks to get his teammates to the edges, which is where you need to attack against a penetrating D-line.

Defensively, I was really going back and forth between Kenny Clark and Darnell Savage, since he will be matched up against another rookie in Deebo Samuel on several occasions if they can get out of base sets and use extra DBs, but I went with Clark since he will be crucial to even get Savage on the field. Outside of Za’Darius Smith and Jaire Alexander, the defensive tackle might be the best player on this Green Bay defense and he will need to take advantage of his matchup. Clark has to make a difference when isolated against 49ers' original second-string center Ben Garland, whether that is playing with extension in the run game and stopping the flow of those zone schemes or pushing the pocket against the pass.

49ers – Raheem Mostert and Emmanuel Moseley

Much like I did with Mecole Hardman, in a crucial matchup like this, I looked at a guy who could potentially flip field-positioning in return-man Richie James, who also can create some easy yardage on-screen and sweep plays, but instead, I moved on to Mostert. Tevin Coleman looked like the lead-back once again last week against Minnesota, but I think the Niners could have much more success in this particular game with the downhill gap-run schemes. Mostert is more of a North-and-South power back with the ability to run through arm tackles and the speed to quickly pick up big chunks when they get him outside on some quick toss plays.

Maybe the most volatile position for the 49ers in that right cornerback across from Richard Sherman. We have seen Ahkello Witherspoon get embarrassed at the line and struggle to stay with receivers down the field. Emmanuel Moseley took over for him several times throughout the regular season and after Robert Saleh made the switch last week, the Vikings could not do anything offensively. The Packers will try to match Davante Adams up against him and also nickelback K’Waun Williams, who will be crucial himself, so this is a situation to follow.

Prediction

The way I can see the Packers win is if they go up by a touchdown early on and force the Niners to throw the ball. I have talked at length about how Green Bay is too transparent with what they do on defense, so forcing Jimmy G to process a lot of information once the ball is snapped will be key. The entire team was schooled in the first meeting between the two teams and not only should the Packers be more prepared this time around, but they also have the taste of revenge in their mouths.

Having said that, to me the 49ers have been the best team in the AFC for pretty much the entire year now. I trust Shanahan to get the offense moving and if they can control the line of scrimmage with their ground attack, they are almost impossible to beat. It will take a heroic performance by Rodgers to really put up points against this outstanding defense. With their arsenal of pass-rushers and a fully healthy back-seven, I think they are just too much to handle. A late field goal after the Packers fail to convert on fourth down might seal this.

Green Bay 17-26 San Francisco