Packer Central

Packers Would Play 49ers in NFL Playoffs

Meanwhile, the Detroit Lions were eliminated when the Seattle Seahawks beat the Los Angeles Rams in overtime.

Bill Huber

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GREEN BAY, Wis. – If the Green Bay Packers get into the NFL playoffs by beating the Detroit Lions, they’ll face a familiar and formidable foe in next week’s NFC wild-card round.

With the Philadelphia Eagles holding off the New York Giants on Sunday evening, they wrapped up the No. 1 seed in the NFC. That meant the red-hot San Francisco 49ers will be the No. 2 seed and host the Packers next weekend.

Dates and times will be announced.

The Lions were eliminated from playoff consideration when the Seattle Seahawks beat the Los Angeles Rams on Josh Myers’ 32-yard field goal in overtime. So, will coach Dan Campbell’s team come out flat, knowing their playoff dreams were dashed, or will they come out full of fire to send a message to Green Bay and to play spoiler?

“This means a lot, because I feel like they don’t respect us,” Lions safety DeShon Elliott told reporters in Detroit on Friday. “(Aaron Rodgers) doesn’t respect us, that team doesn’t respect us. We shouldn’t be an underdog, no matter what the record says. Going out there, I think we’re going to fight our ass off, play smashmouth football, just because of the respect factor.”

Seattle improved to 9-8. Green Bay and Detroit are both 8-8. If Green Bay beats Detroit, it would beat out Seattle for the seventh seed based on better conference record. If Detroit wins, Seattle would get the nod because of its head-to-head victory.

If nobody in the NFL wants to play the Packers if they reach the playoffs with a five-game winning streak and four-time MVP at quarterback, nobody on Earth wants to play the 49ers. They’ve won 10 consecutive games behind a stifling defense and the shocking play of rookie quarterback Brock Purdy.

The final pick of this year’s draft, Purdy has led the 49ers to six of those victories. They’ve scored at least 33 points in five of those games, including a 38-13 rout of Arizona on Sunday. He’s thrown 13 touchdowns vs. four interceptions.

San Francisco went 8-1 at home. Its only loss was its last loss: 44-23 against the Kansas City Chiefs on Oct. 23.

Under coach Matt LaFleur, the Packers have faced the 49ers twice in the postseason. In 2019, San Francisco blasted visiting Green Bay in the NFC Championship Game. In last year’s divisional round at Lambeau Field, the Packers had a chance to get their revenge but lost 13-10 on Talanoa Hufanga’s touchdown on a blocked punt with 4:50 to go and Robbie Gould’s walk-off field goal on the final play.

Rodgers started hot but finished 20-of-29 passing. Aaron Jones and Davante Adams each caught nine passes; everybody else combined caught two.

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.

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