Snow starts to flurry in second half of Packers-49ers Divisional playoff game

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In-game update: It’s still cold. There are also now snow flurries at Lambeau, which should make it even more difficult for the two QBs and the passing games. It’s not like there have been too many explosive plays in the passing game as we get into the second half. We’ll see how the offenses adjust to the weather.

Game day update: COLD

Official kickoff weather: 14 degrees, 13 mph winds, 0 wind chill.

It’s the fifth-coldest playoff game ever in Green Bay. — Rob Demovsky (@RobDemovsky) January 23, 2022

The San Francisco 49ers and Green Bay Packers are set to meet in the divisional round on Saturday with a trip to the NFC Championship Game on the line. The 49ers are coming off a Wild Card round victory over the Dallas Cowboys last Sunday while the Packers got to enjoy a bye as the No. 1 seed in the NFC.

Helpful weather resources include National Weather Service and Dark Sky, among others. Here’s a look at what the forecast in Green Bay, WI, could mean for the 49ers-Packers divisional round matchup.

49ers vs. Packers weather updates from Green Bay

It’s late January in Green Bay, so we aren’t expecting south Florida weather and we would be correct. The high for Saturday in Green Bay is 21 degrees, but this game is in the evening, so the temperatures will be heading down toward a low of 1 degree at night. So we’ll have temperatures between those two, with winds around 6-10 mph and no precipitation.

What it means for fantasy football, betting

Aaron Rodgers and the Packers have shown they can win in cold weather. The 49ers might not be as used to it, but they are a physical team that shouldn’t have much trouble once they get into the game.

Packers vs. 49ers: Biggest plays, best highlights from divisional round

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One half of the NFC Championship Game will be decided by the divisional round showdown between the Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers on Saturday night at Lambeau Field.

The Packers are attempting to get back to the conference title game for the third-straight season.

Here are the biggest plays and best highlights from the divisional round at Lambeau Field:

N.F.L. Playoffs Live Updates: 49ers Bounce Packers, Rodgers On Final Field Goal

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Bengals 19, Titans 16

NASHVILLE — The Cincinnati Bengals last week broke their 31-year playoff drought, and with a young, explosive offense, seemed like this year’s dark horse contender.

And now they officially are. The No. 4-seeded Bengals overcame nine sacks and six penalties to shock the top-seeded Tennessee Titans, 19-16, when rookie kicker Evan McPherson kicked his fourth and final field goal Saturday, a 52-yarder that split the uprights as time expired.

The Bengals, who had three interceptions of their own, will face the winner of the Chiefs-Bills game on Sunday, and will travel to either Kansas City or Buffalo.

“We don’t know what we don’t know,” quarterback Joe Burrow said of the team’s youthfulness, an acknowledgment that he will have less experience no matter who his team faces in the A.F.C. championship game next week, whether his counterpart is Patrick Mahomes, 26, of Kansas City or Josh Allen, 25, of Buffalo. Burrow, 25, is in just his second N.F.L. season, an experience gap that separates him from his peers.

“Tomorrow morning might be a different story, but right now, I feel great,” Burrow said.

Despite the many hits, Burrow threw for 348 yards on 28 of 37 passing with one interception. His counterpart on Saturday, Ryan Tannehill, suffered just one sack, but was doomed by three interceptions.

Statistically, the game made no sense. Burrow was fabulous when he had time to spot his fleet-footed receivers, completing 28 of 37 passes for 348 yards. The Titans blanketed Ja’Marr Chase, who still managed to haul in five passes for 109 yards. Receiver Tee Higgins and tight end C.J. Uzomah each had seven receptions.

Burrow, though, was sacked repeatedly as the Titans defense ran in, around and through the Bengals’ porous offensive line. Tennessee defensive end Jeffery Simmons led the charge with three sacks of Burrow.

“That one was really, really hard,” Burrow said of the pressure he faced throughout the game.

Image Jeffery Simmons, wearing No. 98, had two sacks for Tennessee going into the fourth quarter and finished with three total. Credit… Christopher Hanewinckel/USA Today Sports, via Reuters

The Titans became the fifth team to notch nine sacks in playoff game, joining Kansas City (1994), the Browns (1987), the 49ers (1985) and Bills (1967).

It was the Bengals defense, though, that ultimately saved the day, intercepting Tannehill on the Titans’ first and last plays of the game, and once in between. The final pick was most important as it came with just 20 seconds remaining.

On a drive that began with 2:43 left in the game, Tannehill slowly marched the Titans down the field trying to get the team in field goal position. Then, on the fifth play of the series, on third-and-5 from the Titan’ 40-yard line, Tannehill’s pass was tipped by cornerback Eli Apple and hauled in by linebacker Logan Wilson.

Burrow, who had a breakout season throwing for more than 4,600 yards, got another chance to add to his résumé by stealing a second playoff win. From the Bengals’ 47-yard line, Burrow quickly hit Chase to move the ball to the Titans’ 35 and into decent field goal position.

The Bengals drained a few more seconds off the clock before McPherson connected on the game-winner.

Had Cincinnati’s offensive line been more successful, the Bengals may have won the game easily as the team held the ball for about seven minutes longer than the Titans over the course of thee night, despite the return of Tennessee’s stellar running back Derrick Henry from an absence of more than two months.

Indeed, the game got off to an auspicious start for the Bengals. On the first play from scrimmage, Cincinnati safety Jessie Bates intercepted Tannehill. With great field position, the Bengals looked poised to strike. But in a pattern that defined the game, Burrow was sacked on the first play from scrimmage. A delay-of-game penalty stalled the promising drive and the Bengals settled for a field goal, not a touchdown.

Cincinnati kicked three of them in the first half, and went into the locker room ahead, 9-6.

The Titans, meanwhile, looked rusty after a bye week. Tannehill missed receivers, was sacked, rushed throws, and Henry — who finished with 62 yards on 20 carries — didn’t seem to help much.

The Titans engineered a solid drive midway through the second quarter. Tannehill connected with his two best receivers, A.J. Brown and Julio Jones. On first-and-goal, Henry lined up in the wildcat, took the snap and scored, to the delight of the home crowd that had been calling his name.

Henry and the Titans failed to score on a 2-point attempt, however. In the end, those 2 extra points would not have mattered because the Bengals’ final field goal was just enough.

Replay: Green Bay Packers-San Francisco 49ers game blog with Tom Silverstein

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Tom Silverstein provided updates and analysis and took your questions during the Packers’ 13-10 loss to San Francisco 49ers in the NFC divisional playoff round at Lambeau Field.

REPLAY: Tom Silverstein’s live Packers-49ers game blog

Packers’ season comes to (yet another) heartbreaking end in 13-10 loss to the San Francisco 49ers

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Aaron Rodgers and the Packers offense let the defense down in a playoff game.

You read that right.

After a scintillating opening touchdown drive, the Packers offense put up a stinker for the rest of the game while the defense played an absolute lights out effort that should have been more than enough but wasn’t as Green Bay’s season ended with a 13-10 loss to the San Francisco 49ers.

It was almost enough to win until the Green Bay special teams arrived and the doomsday scenario we all feared happened: a miscue that would fatally wound the Packers in the playoffs

A blocked punt returned for a touchdown by San Francisco tied the game at 10-10. Then the offense crapped the bed with a three-and-out with a chance to win the game.

The valiant defense couldn’t get off the field one last time and Robbie Gould remained perfect to send San Francisco to the NFC title game and Green Bay into what could be an offseason of titanic change.

So in the post-mortem, what happened to the Green Bay offense?

After AJ Dillon’s touchdown run put the Packers on the board, the defense got a quick stop that featured a sack from newly activated Za’Darius Smith that whipped the crowd into a frenzy and showed this game had all the makings of a potential route.

When the offense started moving down the field on the next drive, it looked like the blowout was on but when Marcedes Lewis lost the football, apparently the Packers offense lost all their mojo as well. The rest of the first half resulted in all punts except for one drive that stalled in the red zone and the field goal attempt was blocked.

Thankfully the Green Bay defense played out of its mind, let by a breakout performance by Rashan Gary who finished the game with an insane stat line of two sacks, four tackles (THREE of which went for a loss including a critical fourth-down stop that gave Green Bay a chance to ice the game that of course was coughed up like a hairball by Rodgers and the offense.

Speaking of Rodgers, if this was indeed his final game at Lambeau Field as a Packer it was a game to forget as he was off all night and while 20/29 for 225 yards might look good, it really wasn’t. Outside of the opening drive, the offense had no momentum after the Lewis fumble and it was the most embarrassing postseason performance of Rodgers’ career.

The offensive line also didn’t do any favors against San Francisco’s defensive line allowing five sacks as Dennis Kelly in particular struggled all night with Billy Turner at left tackle since David Bakhtiari was inactive.

People are going to blame special teams for the loss, but it should fall more on the shoulders of Rodgers and Matt LaFleur. If the offense is even competent, that blocked punt doesn’t have an impact nearly as much as it did. A stale game plan further exacerbated by receivers who couldn’t get open (no one not named Adams was even targeted until late in the third quarter!) buried this team. The blocked punt just put flowers on the gravesite of this Packers’ season.

Fans who woke up today with Super Bowl dreams will now head to bed with nightmares of what this offseason could bring. There will be time to discuss that later but for now, the season ends with a horror show of a performance.

Depending on how the offseason plays out, this scary picture could just be the opening act of some rough days ahead in Green Bay.