Why Green Bay Will Win the NFC Divisional Round
It’s Green Bay. It’s mid-January. It’s a Saturday night game, it’s supposed to snow in the morning and be close to 1 degree at some point in the evening.
The 49ers don’t get to play in the sterile, Texas-gauche conditions of AT&T Stadium.
Yes, again, San Francisco is really, really good, but it pitched an almost perfect game and it still needed Dak Prescott to be hip checked by the umpire to get out alive.
Dallas was committed to come up with new and creative ways to get penalized – Green Bay doesn’t have a penalty problem.
The Cowboy offensive line had a rough day keeping Dak Prescott from getting popped, mostly because there just wasn’t anywhere downfield to go. San Francisco came up with four sacks in the first meeting with the Packers and it still lost because Aaron Rodgers came through late.
And then there’s the pressure factor. Of course Green Bay is in Win or Bust mode with 12 desperate to be sucked up to by every team with a quarterback opening, but it’s not like it was in Dallas.
Does Aaron Rodgers strike you as a guy who’s about to buckle under the pressure of the moment?
Prescott didn’t – that was a team-wide problem for Dallas last week as it tried to win the Super Bowl with every play – but Rodgers sets the tone for this bunch. Jerry Jones sets the tone for Dallas – as if you couldn’t tell by the constant reaction shots during the game.
Beyond all of that, can Jimmy Garoppolo and the passing game keep up if the Packers get up early?
This is about as healthy and deep as the Green Bay offense has been all year – assuming the O line is fine and Aaron Jones isn’t having any knee issues. A few quick strikes early could all but end this, but …
– What’s Going To Happen, Prediction
– NFL Divisional Round Schedules, Predictions