Packers shouldn’t mind being underdogs in NFC Championship Game
The Green Bay Packers are underdogs in the NFC Championship Game, but that can be a good thing.
Aaron Rodgers has played with a chip on his shoulder his entire career. And as if he needed more motivation than playing in an NFC Championship Game against his home team and the club that snubbed him in the 2005 draft. He now gets to lead a Packers team that nobody is giving a chance to win.
The Packers are 7.5-point underdogs this weekend. The 49ers are heavy favorites. After all, they beat this Packers team 37-8 already this season.
But that shouldn’t bother Matt LaFleur or the players one bit, and it could actually help them.
The Packers haven’t been given much respect all season long.
Despite finishing sixth in the NFL for sacks, tied for first in quarterbacks hits, and eighth in ESPN’s pass rush win rate for defensive ends and outside linebackers, Za’Darius Smith wasn’t named an All-Pro or voted to the Pro Bowl.
Smith hasn’t been given the respect he deserves this season, and he’s well aware of that. After sacking Russell Wilson last week, he celebrated by showing the word “snubbed” on his undershirt.
Aaron Jones had 19 total touchdowns in the regular season and added two more in the divisional round last week. Like Smith, he has no All-Pro or Pro Bowl to show for it.
This team has slipped under the radar all year long. They weren’t given a chance of challenging for the playoffs before the season. How would they compete with the division-champion Chicago Bears, the Minnesota Vikings or even the up-and-coming Detroit Lions? A division sweep, 13-3 season and first-round bye later, they still didn’t convince many people that they should be taken seriously as Super Bowl contenders.
They got the job done with victory over a talented Seattle Seahawks team in the first round of the playoffs and now return to the NFC Championship Game.
Few analysts will give Green Bay a shot this week, but that’s nothing new. LaFleur should embrace the us-against-the-world mentality. Those outside Lambeau Field might not believe they’ll win, but everyone in the locker room does.
Aaron Rodgers said “the pressure is in a certain place and we should be nice and loose” when discussing the 49ers entering the game as heavy favorites.
And he’s right.
The 49ers are expected to win. They are at home. They dominated the Packers in Week 12. But what if they have some first-quarter nerves and fall behind early? The Kansas City Chiefs bounced back from a similar situation last week, but how would the 49ers respond with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line and a future Hall-of-Fame quarterback on the other sideline?
While he was head coach, Mike McCarthy used to say the Packers were “nobody’s underdog”. Yet despite many giving them no chance to win this game, the Packers can show why McCarthy was right.