A Rivalry Renewed

With the Packers man-handling the Vikings in the Wild Card Playoff round last Saturday, they will now travel to San Francisco to face the 49ers for a trip to the NFC Championship Game.

Oh. Baby.

The 49er Dynasty of the 1980's is a massive source of pride, but I was born too late to really enjoy it. Their rivalry with the Cowboys in the 1990's was great, and left me with a healthy hatred of "America's Team" that still hangs on today. But it was the rivalry with the Packers of the late '90's that took hold of me in the most emotional way, and gave me my favorite football memory of all time. The media began its shameful love affair with Brett Favre during this time, taking away attention from the much-deserving Steve Young, who had turned in the greatest SuperBowl performance of all time in 1994. But in 3 straight seasons, the Pack ousted the 49ers from the playoffs. It was, as they say, on. So to get that monkey off their backs in 1999 with The Catch II ("OWENS! OWENS! OWENS!"), well that was just peachy.

The Packers got the 49ers again in 2002 to go up 4-1 in playoff meetings, so there is some work to do to turn the tables. They can start this Saturday, as a new chapter in this history book will be written. And the '9ers already showed they can beat their rivals when they handily upset the Packers in Week 1, in Green Bay. Packers fans no doubt have some excuse as to why that game went the way it did, and the 49ers are banged up, so it will be no easy task. They are at home this time, and they also have a different quarterback, which apparently is an important position.

By now I think we can agree that Kaepernick is a (probably minor) upgrade over Alex Smith, right? He lacks experience, which could turn out to be huge, but it will be tough to measure. What we can know is that he can throw the ball faster and farther, and he's more mobile (although people do seem to be forgetting that Smith could run the ball, too). Anyway, my point is, I think we know pretty much what we are getting from most of this 49er team. From my limited football knowledge, I'd say there are two 49ers on which the game will hinge: Justin Smith and David Akers.

It was never a secret that Aldon Smith relied heavily on Justin Smith while he was piling up the sacks this year. But since Justin went down with a torn tricep tendon, Aldon hasn't added to his sack total once. More frightening is that it's easy to tell the defense as a whole has suffered. Through the first 13.5 games this year, the '9ers gave up an average 3.3 points per quarter (that's counting the two overtimes against St. Louis and the first half of the Pats game). Since Halftime of that Pats game (roughly when Smith went out), the 49ers have allowed an average of 8.6 points per quarter. (That's not as good). It looks like Smith will play this weekend, but there's no way to tell how effective he will be. The 49ers will need to get consistent pressure on Aaron Rogers to stop that high-powered offense. I'm not sure they can do it with 50% of Justin Smith.

Meanwhile, David Akers has gone from one of the best in the game to one of the worst. Hopefully he'll continue doing his best Tim Lincecum impression and have a complete revival in the playoffs. The 49er formula of grinding out wins with stingy defense, conservative offense, and winning the field position battle doesn't really work without a lock-down field-goal kicker. That's yet another reason why Kaepernick may be the better choice. Still, probably my favorite moment of this regular season was Akers's 63-yarder against the Packers. Seems like he's a completely different person now. Harbaugh even brought in another kicker to practice this week to compete with Akers.

So there's uncertainty. Surprise Surprise. I'm just glad there's reason to truly dislike the Packers again. Ever since Favre left, (and since the 49ers have been mostly bad), I haven't had a problem with them. Aaron Rogers has been so unbelievably good, it's hard to hate him aside from his stupid touchdown celebration. Well as soon as he throws his first on Saturday, it is, as they say, on.