3 Big Things from another Heartbreaking Packers Playoff Loss
By Paul Bretl
The Green Bay Packers suffered yet another heartbreaking playoff loss–something as fans we’ve unfortunately grown accustomed to seeing. With the offense and special teams unit sputtering, the San Francisco 49ers came into Lambeau Field and hit a last-second field goal to move on to the NFC Championship Game.
I’ve now had the opportunity to rewatch the game — I know, why would I do that? — so if you can stomach it, I have my 3 Big Things from the Packers performance.
The special teams unit does the Green Bay Packers in
We’ve talked about on multiple occasions leading up to this game–a team’s weaknesses are often magnified in the playoffs and can be the reason they are sent home. And that is what we saw Saturday night with the Green Bay Packers special teams unit.
Green Bay entered the postseason having been ranked the worst special teams unit in football, although we don’t exactly need rankings to tell us how bad they are. In a recent article, I went through just about everything that went wrong this season–I’ll spare you the frustration by just saying that there were breakdowns in pretty much every phase of special teams at some point this year.
Against San Francisco, Green Bay would give up a 45-yard kick return to Deebo Samuel, but fortunately, the defense was able to overcome that. The truly egregious errors, however, were a blocked field goal attempt where Tyler Lancaster didn’t even make an attempt to block Denzel Ward, and a blocked punt where long-snapper Steven Wirtel was bullied into the backfield. The Niners would then scoop the ball and score.
In a game where the Green Bay Packers lost by three on a last-second field goal, they gifted the 49ers 10 points.
Special teams play was a major liability all season long, and at least from the outside looking in, there were never any major changes made along the way to correct that. As a result, it’s a big reason why the Green Bay Packers season has come to an end.