Watched the whole game yesterday. A few observations:
1. The cold didn’t impact the game as much as people thought it might. Not a lot of slipping or sliding going on, and both teams were able to throw and catch the ball. The kicking game was affected, though. Kickoffs were noticeably shorter even on good kicks, and a couple of them looked to be unintentional knuckers. Both teams were also noticeably conservative on field goals – none were attempted over 40 yards despite a couple of opportunities that would have been realistic under normal conditions.
2. Green Bay temperatures are now 15 below zero with wind chill of 42 below. If the game had been scheduled today, it may well have been called, assuming the NFL is somewhat more enlightened about player safety (a big if) than it was in 1967.
3. We will hear a lot about Eddie Lacy, the Green Bay running back, in future seasons. I don’t think I saw him go down once to a single tackler the whole game. With such a one-man wrecking crew standing behind him in the backfield, Aaron Rodgers’ life should get a lot easier.
4. When Green Bay defensive back Davon House got called for grabbing Michael Crabtree in the fourth quarter and trying to stretch his jersey to a quadruple extra large, I had wondered up to that point whether the officials were going to call any penalties at all during the game. It didn’t take long for players on both teams to figure out that flags would be thrown as if they were manhole covers, and the resulting illegal holding and grabbing was obvious to everyone else. It will be interesting to see what will happen on Tuesday when the officiating crew gets their game grades from the NFL—not that we’ll ever know, of course.
5. We now see how much Kaepernick missed Micheal Crabtree during the season – he wasted no time in throwing to him as soon as he got the ball to start the game. With a healthy receiving crew for once, the 49ers could be a much different team than the one that lost to the Carolina Panthers during the season. They may not beat the Panthers next Sunday, but they should score a lot more than nine points.
I enjoyed the win yesterday, mostly because it gives me reason to be interested in the NFL for another week. Now, because of scheduling, I need to ponder an excuse for missing church next Sunday – kickoff is set for 10:00 AM on the West Coast.
http://youtu.be/bOPgiKQnZ8I
