Aaron Rodgers definitely enjoyed defeating the 49ers. After all that’s the football team that he grew up cheering for. It’s also the team that on the 2005 draft day snubbed him.
However neither Rodger or Green Bay were gloating after their 30-24 win over the 49ers on Sunday. During the second half the Packers (6-4) almost blew their big lead. They also may now have to try to hang in there in the race for the playoffs without two of their key defensive players: Aaron Kampman, outside linebacker, and Al Harris, cornerback, who both suffered knee injures that are potentially very serious.
During the second half both Harris and Kampman were carted off and back to the Packers locker room. Mike McCarthy, Packers coach, admitted there is concern over the severity of the two players injuries.
McCarthy said, those two injuries hopefully are not as serious as we are thinking.
The Packers coach added that the team would hopefully know more on Monday about Harris and Kampman. In the meantime they will try to carry the things they did do right from the first half over into their game in Detroit on Thursday.
If Rodgers was feeling any satisfaction from defeating the team that had passed him up in the draft, the quarterback was keeping those thoughts to himself.
Rodgers, a Chico, California native said, it’s a lot of fun playing against a team you idolized when you were growing up. Every Sunday I watched them after church. Those guys deserved a lot of credit. They fought harder during the second half.
Alex Smith, San Francisco’s No. 1 draft pick the year they passed up Rodgers, was able to rebound from his miserable start. After halftime he threw three touchdown passes for San Francisco (4-6), include Michael Crabtree’s first career touchdown catch.
However the 49ers’ rally fell short, making their path to making it into the playoffs a lot harder.
Mike Singletary, 49ers coach said, we either dig ourselves into a big hole early on and there’s too much for us to overcome or we get ahead and end up getting too comfortable when we have the lead. We need to start settling down. The young guys need to settle down some and just play the game of football.
At halftime Green Bay led the game 23-3 and during the four quarter 30-10 after Nick Collins picked off an Alex Smith pass, setting up a touchdown run of one yard by Ryan Grant, who had 129 yards rushing.
Josh Morgan of the 49ers had a kickoff return of 76 yards. Smith then connected with Vernon Davis on a touchdown pass of 24 yards to cut the Packers’ lead down to 30-17.
During the next series, with Kampman and Harris sidelined, Smith completed long passes to Crabtree and Isaac Bruce. That set up a fourth down and 5 play from the 10 yard line of the Packers. With 5:56 remaining, Smith threw a touchdown pass to Frank Gore and cut the Packers lead even further down to 30-24.
Charles Woodson, Packers cornerback said, just because you have a lead over a team that doesn’t mean they will quit. They didn’t quit. During the second half we gave up some big plays to them. We let them stay in and gave them confidence.
The success for the 49ers according to Davis came mostly from the team’s shotgun spread formations. He suggested using the spread more frequently.
Davis said, we need to come in from the very start and take advantage of what we can. If it means spread the ball, we maybe should do it. It’s not my call though. I don’t call our plays.
The starting quarterback of the 49ers wasn’t sold though, stating they were too deep into the season for making major changes.
Green Bay, despite all the swings in momentum, was able to hold on and win. During their recent losses to Tampa Bay and Minnesota they didn’t do that.
McCarthy said, this is something we definitely can build from. In the past we had some of those swings in momentum. Two weeks ago we had that and we didn’t recover.
Following the touchdown by Gore, Green Bay put a drive together, including a crucial third down conversion that Rodgers got on a quarterback sneak on that allowed the Packers to run the clock out.
Rodgers went 32 for 45 for a total of 344 yards passing, with 274 of his yards coming during the first half when Green Bay built their 23-3 lead. The offensive line for the Packers did a serviceable job. On Sunday they gave up two sacks. Coming in, Rodgers had been sacked 41 times, the worst in the league.
Smith went 16 for 33 for a total of 227 yards passing. Although his rally in the second half was impressive, the performance by Rodgers provided more evidence that Green Bay got a better deal from San Francisco selecting Smith in 2005 as their No. 1 draft pick. Rodgers had also been considered as the top draft pick, but ended up slipping all the way down to No. 24 where the Packers selected him.
Smith said, I’m happy for the guy. He’s been through a lot of adversity. That deal on draft day and then coming here and sitting behind Brett Favre. Then that Brett Favre thing happening here. He had big shoes he needed to fill. The guy stepped up.
