The San Francisco 49ers almost allowed late mental errors to let it slip away but held on to win a Wild Card playoff game on the road that they had controlled for most of the contest. Niners have no time to rest on laurels as they must contend with a short week and travel to the frozen tundra to face a well-rested Packers team led by likely MVP Aaron Rodgers. Here we discuss the odds and analysis from a betting perspective.
- When: Saturday, January 22nd, 2022 at 5:15 pm PT (FOX)
- Where: Lambeau Field, Green Bay, Wisconsin
- Line: 49ers +6, over/under 47.5
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers earned a bye last week and had rested starters in their Week 18 30-37 loss to the Detroit Lions.
After the regular season, Green Bay ranks 8th in total weighted DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average) at 15.1 percent, 2nd in weighted offensive DVOA at 22.5 percent with a 2nd ranked offensive pass DVOA at 36.4 percent and 8th ranked offensive rush DVOA at 3.5 percent. The Packers defense is rated 22nd in weighted defensive DVOA at 1.8 percent with a 15th rated defensive pass DVOA at 5.8 percent and 28th rated defensive rush DVOA at -0.1 percent.
Aaron Rodgers is 2nd in defense-adjusted yards above replacement (DYAR) at 1,511 and 1st in total QBR at 68.8 with 37 touchdown passes, 4 interceptions, 0 fumbles lost and a 69.3 completion percentage.
Packers special teams rank 32nd in weighted DVOA at -5.6 percent. Green Bay's offensive line is 3rd in run blocking with 4.79 adjusted line yards and 6th in pass protection with an adjusted sack rate of 5.1 percent. The Packers' defensive line is 26th against the run with 4.61 adjusted line yards and 20th with an adjusted sack rate of 6.3 percent.
The Packers have an ESPN Football Power Index (FPI) of 5.3 and are 12-5 ATS, including a throw-away loss to Detroit in Week 18, and 8-9 to the over/under.
Za'Darius Smith could be activated from IR, Jaire Alexander, Kingsley Keke, Marques Valdez-Scantling and Billy Turner are questionable, Aaron Rodgers, Aaron Jones and De'Vondre Campbell are probable for the Divisional playoff game.
San Francisco 49ers
The 49ers controlled the majority of the contest against the Dallas Cowboys on both sides of the ball behind 96 rushing yards and a touchdown from Elijah Mitchell, 72 yards rushing and a touchdown from Deebo Samuel, while sacking Dak Prescott 5 times, intercepting him once and holding the Cowboys offense to 17 points in a 23-17 victory.
San Francisco ranks 5th in total weighted DVOA at 24.8 percent, 4th in weighted offensive DVOA at 16.8 percent with a 5th ranked offensive pass DVOA at 33.2.percent and 5th ranked offensive rush DVOA at 6.6 percent. The 49er defense is rated 5th in weighted defensive DVOA at -11.7 percent with a 16th rated defensive pass DVOA at 5.8 percent and 2nd rated defensive rush DVOA at -24.8 percent.
Jimmy Garoppolo is 10th in defense-adjusted yards above replacement (DYAR) at 855 and 14th in total QBR at 52.6 with 20 touchdown passes, 12 interceptions, 2 fumbles lost, and a 68.9 completion percentage.
49ers special teams rank 29th in weighted DVOA at -3.7 percent. San Francisco's offensive line is 11th in run blocking with 4.40 adjusted line yards and 17th in pass protection with an adjusted sack rate of 6.6 percent. The Niners' defensive line is 2nd against the run with 3.56 adjusted line yards and 5th with an adjusted sack rate of 8.0 percent.
The 49ers have an ESPN FPI of 4.4 and are 10-8 ATS and 8-10 to the over/under.
Jordan Willis, Jimmy Garoppolo, Fred Warner, Nick Bosa, Maurice Hurst, Trey Sermon, Marcell Harris and Talanoa Hufanga are listed as questionable for the Divisional playoff game.
Prediction
The San Francisco 49ers are in a disadvantageous spot in the divisional round, dealing with a short week and travel to freezing temperatures against a Packers team that was on a bye last week and rested starters for the second half of their Week 18 game.
Questions about the health of Nick Bosa and Fred Warner this week and Jimmy Garoppolo continuing to give up at least one bad turnover per game also make it hard to trust San Francisco in this match up.
Green Bay has a monumental advantage at quarterback and have been a covering machine at Lambeau this season, going 7-1 ATS at home, so it's no surprise that money has been flooding in on Green Bay, steaming this line from its 4.5 point open all the way to where it sits now at 6.
But the Green Bay Packers have a glaring statistical disadvantage that leads us to believe that the Niners will be a live dog on Saturday. They say that defense wins championships and the Packers defense ranks 22nd in weighted defensive DVOA and 28th in rush defense DVOA with a defensive line that rates 26th against the run, and we are having a difficult time conceiving how Elijah Mitchell or Deebo Samuel will have a harder time against the Packers run defense than they did against a Cowboys defense that ranked 1st in total weighted defensive DVOA and 16th in defensive rush DVOA.
Kyle Shanahan has proven that if he can get the run game going it usually bodes well for outcome of the game, and if San Francisco can exploit Green Bay's run defense, they should be able to keep this score within a touchdown. Indeed, the Cleveland Browns featured the top ranked rush offense DVOA and they rushed for 219 total yards against the Packers at Lambeau in a 22-24 loss that was the only game the Packers did not cover against the spread at Lambeau this season, and we envision San Francisco having similar success on the ground on Saturday.
Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams did eviscerate San Francisco's secondary in Week 3 and K'Waun Williams got burned for a touchdown by Amari Cooper last week, but San Francisco's defense, including its secondary, has tightened up a bit and become more healthy toward the end of the season while featuring more of an improving Ambry Thomas and less of the liability in Josh Norman. And with a Niners pass rush that is getting more pressure on the quarterback recently compared to when these teams first met, we don't anticipate that Green Bay will have as easy a time through the air as many might expect.
To give you an idea of how destructive the 49ers' pass rush has been....
In the 2019 Week 12 "mayhem" game, SF hit Aaron Rodgers 10 times.
Over the past two weeks, the 49ers have hit Stafford and Prescott a combined 27 times
— David Lombardi (@LombardiHimself) January 18, 2022
Lambeau Field has a reputation as one of the more significant home field advantages and for many years the Packers were unbeatable there in the playoffs, going 13-0 in home playoff games from 1921-2001, as reported by Rob Reischel in Forbes. But starting with Michael Vick and the Atlanta Falcons 27-7 rout in 2002 to Tampa Bay's 31-26 upset last season, Green Bay has been vulnerable in the playoffs at Lambeau, going 7-6 during that timeframe.
Despite the Packers documented vulnerabilities in the playoffs at Lambeau, the public continues to expect a huge homefield advantage for Green Bay, buoyed by the Packers 8-0 straight up and 7-1 ATS record there this season, and this may contribute to Green Bay being overvalued by the market and at a potential sell high position. Green Bay's home wins this season have come against the Detroit Lions, Pittsburgh Steelers, Washington Football Team, Minnesota Vikings, Seattle Seahawks, Chicago Bears and Los Angeles Rams, with only two of those teams making the playoffs and only one of those teams accruing more than nine wins.
Newton's first law of motion, or the law of inertia, posits that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted on by an unbalanced force, and while there is little doubt that getting rest is an advantage for NFL teams, one cannot argue that the San Francisco 49ers have been in playoff mode since their loss at Tennessee and they have the momentum and spirit of a team that no one should want to play in an elimination game.
In the Super Bowl era, eleven Wild Card teams have reached the Super Bowl and seven have won it all, including the 2020 Tampa Bay team and 2008 New York Giants team both pulling off upsets at Lambeau in the playoffs, and while it might be a stretch to fantasize about this San Francisco 49ers team getting to the Super Bowl or even beating Green Bay this weekend, we've seen a unique resilience in this Niners team that makes it difficult to foresee them laying down or getting spanked by the Packers and its porous run defense, and can only take the points with a San Francisco squad that is 3-1 ATS as an underdog this season.
Pick: 49ers +6
2021 Season ATS: 10-8