The Packers' playoff flaws popped up like a game of Whac-a-Mole, and now they're finished (again)

For the third straight season under head coach Matt LaFleur, the Green Bay Packers rode a stellar regular season performance to Super Bowl hopes and a first-round postseason bye. And for the third straight year, their season ended in the NFC side of the playoff bracket because of one glaring mistake.

In 2020, it was the end result of an awful rushing defense that wound up sliced and diced by Raheem Mostert. In 2021 it was a product of limited depth in both the secondary and receiving corps in a loss to the Buccaneers. On Saturday night, it was thanks to one of the league’s worst special teams units.

The Packers lost to the San Francisco 49ers on a frigid night, 13-10. Even worse, they lost on a night where the 49ers offense failed to score a single touchdown.

A blocked field goal and blocked punt wound up wasting a stellar effort from the Green Bay defense. The Packers limited both Elijah Mitchell and Deebo Samuel to fewer than four yards per carry. Jimmy Garoppolo had just six completions with 10 minutes to play. And this did not matter because the Packers’ special teams blocking disintegrated like cheap toilet paper when crap got real.

The 49ers (+5.5) won a game in which the only lead they took came at the final whistle. It was a testament to defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans’ playcalling.

The Packers took a 7-0 lead after their first drive of the game. San Francisco didn’t finish a drive with positive yardage until the fifth time the Niners got the ball. All this should have been anathema to a road win against 2021’s presumptive regular season NFL, but Ryans kept Rodgers bottled up in what may have been his final game in green and yellow.

San Francisco, deficient secondary and all, kept its safety help glued to Davante Adams and blurred Aaron Rodgers’ vision downfield thanks to the work of a harried front seven. The 49ers didn’t have to blitz much to make the veteran quarterback uncomfortable; they sacked him five times and hit him six more across 34 dropbacks. Three of those sacks came on third down.

Here’s Rodgers against a four-man rush. Nick Bosa’s win on the edge flushes him out of the pocket and knocks him off rhythm. He tries to look downfield for a target, but by the time he comes back to reliable Adams there’s no chance of success:

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That pressure also kept Rodgers from planting his feet and looking deep. Only six of his throws traveled more than 10 yards downfield. His solution to multiple third-and-long situations were scrambles that devolved into checkdown passes near the line of scrimmage with little chance of picking up 10 yards and a fresh set of downs:

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Here’s a first quarter third down where Rodgers has Adams covered and blanketed over the top by safety help and no intermediate routes to fall back on. Pressure from a four-man rush drives him from the pocket, and he’s reduced to eventually launching a prayer to Dominique Dafney, who began the year as the team’s fourth-string tight end.

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Ryans obscured his coverage and alternated between sending extra pressure and just looking like he would before dropping into coverage. His defense gave Rodgers tunnel vision: He completed nine passes to Adams, nine to tailback Aaron Jones, and two to the rest of his roster.

That left us with a rock fight in Green Bay. Neither quarterback was able to gain much leverage. Ultimately, the game was decided by mistakes. The Packers, despite a stellar defensive effort, didn’t get the offensive support they needed to overcome the hole their special teams had dug.

Even after these missed opportunities, the Packers still had one final chance to push the game to overtime as the Niners lined up a 45-yard field goal attempt as time expired. It was a slight one; Robbie Gould has never missed a postseason kick in his long NFL career and his time as a Chicago Bear gave him plenty of experience at Lambeau Field. But deflecting his attempt in the swirling, snowy Wisconsin wind would send the game to overtime.

And, true to form for Saturday night and the 2021 season as a whole, the Packers lined up to block the kick with only 10 men.

That is a pretty perfect gravestone for another wasted season in the Aaron Rodgers era for the Green Bay Packers.