Post Mortem

Well, I’m glad I sold my tickets to that game.  Losing is painful enough in front of the TV.  It’s even worse, though, in person.

I’m no coroner, but I think I can hazard a few cause-of-death guesses in the wake of the Packers’ maddening Week One loss at home.

1) People talked before the game about the match-up between finesse and power.  I don’t think the issue with the Green Bay offense is finesse, however.  I think it’s rhythm.  Much of this game had a feel reminiscent of last year’s debacle in Kansas City.  The Packer offense just never really got into its groove.  No rhythm.  The defense deserves a lot of credit for that, to be sure, but I also think that a good, mentally tough team learns how to make their own rhythm.

I don’t think I’d say that the 49ers beat us because they are the better team.  Indeed, I actually like our chances in a playoff rematch with these guys.  I just think that, on this particular day, they managed to keep us out of our rhythm.  And since teams don’t manage to do that very often, I think we’ll win the next time around.

2) Psychologically, I think the current Green Bay team is designed to go downhill.  We get a lead, and then we pick up speed from there -- on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball.  While I don’t often miss Brett Favre, I do think that he brought to the team more of an “uphill” mentality: a pervading sense that we could always come back from behind.  This team, however, is meant to be ahead.  Witness the statistic that FOX shared at one point in the third quarter: that the Packers were behind at home for a total of fewer than 4 minutes during the entire 2011 season!

3) Dom Capers has a lot of work to do.  While the 2010 defense was heroic, winning game after game for the Packers, the 2011 squad was notorious.  By some standards, we were the lowest ranked defense in the entire league, which is quite an achievement for a 15-1 team.  This debut of the 2012 defense was not at all encouraging.  It looked more like the group from last year than the year before.  Perhaps even worse, for this group got gashed for a lot of rushing yards in addition to giving up a ton in the passing game. 

Those are the primary issues that occur to me.  Of course, there were other little things… #88 had several more drops.  Finley needs to make the move from “incredible potential” to “incredible performance” this year.  The Packer running game didn’t offer any real balance to the offense.  Rodgers didn’t consistently get the kind of protection that allowed him to be at his best.  There was the surprising interception that led immediately to a 49er touchdown.  And, of course, the officiating was pretty frustrating.  Not uneven; just frustrating.  And I imagine that it’s hard for players not to let it get into their heads that they can’t count on the officials to see and to call the right things. 

(But credit the 49ers in this regard: they managed to recover mentally from some early calls that went against them.) 

So is there any good news coming out of Sunday?  Yes, some.

Clay Matthews looked good, and it was great to see some of the old QB pressure.  Randall Cobb looked terrific.  We came out without any serious injuries.  We’ve immunized ourselves against that “perfect season” pressure.  And, best of all, we don’t have to live with this bitter taste in our mouths for long, for we get to turn right around and take out our frustrations on the visiting Bears on Thursday Night!