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The 49ers are 1.5-Point Underdogs Against the Packers

Why are the oddsmakers losing confidence in the 49ers?

Grant Cohn

Green Bay Packers defensive tackle T.J. Slaton (93) stops San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) during the first quarter of their NFC divisional playoff game Saturday, January 20, 2024 at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
Green Bay Packers defensive tackle T.J. Slaton (93) stops San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) during the first quarter of their NFC divisional playoff game Saturday, January 20, 2024 at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, California. / Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK
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The oddsmakers are starting to lose confidence in the 49ers.

For the first time since last year, the 49ers are underdogs for their upcoming game. The Packers are favored to beat them by 1.5 points. Which means the 49ers might be favored to win if the game were played on a neutral field, but it will be played in Green Bay.

Why are the oddsmakers losing confidence in the 49ers?

They're 5-5. They haven't beaten a team with a winning record. They're 1-3 in their division. They're blown fourth-quarter leads to all three of their divisional opponents. Nick Bosa has two oblique injuries and might not play this week. Christian McCaffrey hasn't regained his burst or his feel for finding holes. Brock Purdy is having a down season statistically. Teams seem to have caught on to Kyle Shanahan's offensive system. The defense has given up four game-winning drives this season. And the special teams unit is the worst in the league.

The 49ers have done nothing this season to give people confidence that they can go on a run as they have in the past. The reason oddsmakers and analysts have been optimistic about the 49ers for so long is because of how consistent they had been the past few seasons.

But now the 49ers are older and don't seem to have the same gear they once had. Simply scoring touchdowns has been difficult for a team that scored them in its sleep last season.

Maybe being underdogs is the wakeup call the 49ers need.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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