SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The San Francisco 49ers had plenty of success going up against the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs when Aaron Rodgers was running the show.
The 49ers knocked the veteran quarterback and his Packers out of the playoffs four times, including twice in the past four postseasons.
While first-year starter Jordan Love lacks the career credentials of the four-time MVP who was traded to the New York Jets last April, his performance in the last half of the regular season and a playoff victory has caught the attention of the 49ers.
“He’s really good at going through his reads and playing the offense to a T,” 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa said.
San Francisco, which went 12-5 in the regular season to clinch the NFC’s No. 1 seed for the playoffs, had a bye last weekend as the Packers impressed in a stunning wild-card upset of the second-seeded Dallas Cowboys, a 48-32 victory that wasn’t as close as the final score indicated.
Now the Packers will try to make it two postseason road wins in two weeks, visiting NFC West Division champion San Francisco at 8:15 p.m. Eastern on Saturday. Fox will televise the game.
Love, after a shaky start to his fourth pro season but first leading the offense, has been playing at a high level the past two months, with the former first-round draft pick helping the Packers go 9-8 during the regular season to secure the last spot in the NFC postseason field. He has thrown 21 touchdown passes with only one interception the past nine games and is coming off one of the best playoff debuts in NFL history.
Love completed 16 of 21 passes for 272 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions in last Sunday’s win at Dallas, the NFC East champion.
“I thought he played a really, really good football game,” said Packers coach Matt LaFleur, who has the team in the playoffs for the fourth time in his five seasons. “It’s never going to be perfect. There’s going to be little details here and there, whether it’s hanging in the pocket, some decisions, but I’ll tell you what, the guy made some massive plays in that game that kind of go off script, so to speak, and to me that’s where you see so much value in him.”
With Love playing as well as he has and a group of young targets emerging as big threats, the Packers once again look like a top offensive team after taking a step back in Rodgers’ last season in Green Bay in 2022. The 49ers see a similar look to those high-powered offenses they faced early in LaFleur’s tenure but notice more of the coach’s influence on the scheme now that he has a young quarterback he can mold.
“They have a lot of the same guys from the past really good teams they have had and a quarterback who does exactly what he’s coached to do,” Bosa said. “Aaron Rodgers is a Hall of Famer and unbelievable, but he kind of went outside of the realm of coaching, and sometimes it’s good when you have a guy who does what he’s coached to do.”
It seems as if a different player emerges as Love’s favorite target each week.
The Packers have produced a different 100-yard receiver each of their past three games. Romeo Doubs had six catches for 151 yards against the Cowboys. Jayden Reed didn’t catch a single pass against Dallas, but he had four receptions for 112 yards when the Packers closed the regular season with a 17-9 victory over the Chicago Bears. One week earlier, Bo Melton caught six passes for 105 yards in a 33-10 triumph against the Minnesota Vikings.
“You never really know who’s going to have the big game for us in the receiver room,” Love said. “You have plays dialed up for some guys, and other times it’s just kind of the looks we get defensively, who might be catching the ball. But I think the mindset, they all want the ball, they all expect the ball on every play, and that’s what’s helping them be successful.”
Meanwhile, Green Bay’s Aaron Jones has rushed for more than 110 yards each of his past four games, including 118 yards and three touchdowns versus the Cowboys. But while Jones has rushed for more than 100 yards every time he has faced the Cowboys, he has never rushed for 100 yards in six previous meetings with San Francisco — though he had nine catches for 129 yards as well as 12 carries for 41 yards in a divisional-round loss to the 49ers two years ago.
Since losing Super Bowl LIV to cap the 2019 season, the 49ers have missed the playoff and advanced to back-to-back NFC title games but came up short in both. Now they’re ready to get rid of the bad taste from those season-ending losses with hopes for a deeper run.
“We’re excited,” All-Pro left tackle Trent Williams said. “This is what you wait all year for, especially after the way last year ended. The regular season is fun and it has its own challenges. But when you get that close, like we did last year, you just want to fast-forward to the regular season and get back to this tournament.”