Green Bay, San Francisco Jockey For Conference Position

NFL News - November 17th, 2009 - Written by John

Last week, the Green Bay Packers made it clear. In a closed-door team meeting led by several of their premier players, the team vented about it's lack of success on the field, including a miserable loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Something must have hit home.

The Packers responded with a dominating, suffocating defense and a serviceable offense that gave the crowd at Lambeau Field it's best win of the year, 17-7 over the Dallas Cowboys. With the season, and spirits, reborn, the Packers hope to capitalize on the momentum against the San Francisco 49ers. They are favored against the Niners by 6 1/2 points, according to BetUs, with an even -110 payout.

This has the potential to be a season-making game, despite the fact that there is little anticipation. Hovering around .500, both teams have a very real chance of finishing 9-7, and might need this head-to-head tie breaker to decide a wild card spot.

Green Bay boasts the league's eighth-best offense in terms of total yards, and is seventh with 25.8 points per. They're defense has been equally good thus far, ranking fourth in the league during the 2009 NFL Season and is one of only ten teams allowing fewer than 20 points a game.

San Francisco has been one of those unknowns for most of the year, losing to the Houston Texans one week, then turning around and owning Jay Cutler the next week. But it doesn't have any real bad losses and is exactly at 20 points allowed a game with a great showing against the Chicago Bears. With a reduced audience on the NFL Network, the Niners intercepted Cutler five times and held on to a 10-6 win. It was quarterback Alex Smith's first win since early 2007, and helped the NFC West hopeful break a three-game slump.

Green Bay snapped a similar skid in beating the Cowboys. Charles Woodson picked off Tony Romo once, and made another jarring hit on the quarterback that caused a game-changing fumble in the fourth quarter. The ball was scooped up inside Dallas' five, and Aaron Rodgers finished off the play with a touchdown pass to Spencer Havner. Rodgers is enjoying career numbers. He is the fourth-rated passer, and needs just over 1,500 yards in the next seven games to break 4,000.

Truly something changed on the Green Bay sideline after the meeting, and this game has the potential to be as competitive (not in a Buffalo-Cleveland way) as their early decade meetings in the playoffs. They haven't been in the playoffs the same year since 2002, but most of that fault goes to San Francisco.

This is the best shot they've had of making the postseason since then, with Vernon Davis leading all tight ends with seven touchdowns, and Frank Gore back to his old self.

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