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Will the 49ers Offense Start Slow Against the Packers?

Keep in mind, the Packers have played essentially four playoff games in a row.

Grant Cohn

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The 49ers haven't played a meaningful game in more than a month. How will that affect their offense this Saturday against the Packers?

The last game the 49ers played that actually mattered was on Dec. 10 when they clinched a playoff berth with a 28-16 win over the Seahawks. Since then, the 49ers have been on cruise control with almost zero playoff pressure. In addition, their starters didn't play all of Week 18, and they're coming off a bye week.

Will the 49ers offense start slow against the Packers?

Keep in mind, the Packers have played essentially four playoff games in a row, considering they had to win their final three regular season games just to make the playoffs, then they had to play in the Wild Card round and they won. So they're not rusty. They've been in postseason form for a month. That doesn't mean they're better than the 49ers, but they don't have to be better than the 49ers to win. They just have to be better than the 49ers for three hours.

So I ask again, will the 49ers offense start slow against the Packers?

It shouldn't.

Kyle Shanahan is an excellent coach whose game plan and opening play script both should be outstanding. I fully expect the 49ers to score on their opening drive like they typically do. And I fully expect the 49ers to play like they haven't taken any time off, because they're a veteran team that has been in the playoffs three times in the past four seasons -- they know what to expect and how to prepare. This is not a new experience for them.

Could be a high-scoring game.

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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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