I have a bit of a bone to pick with the NFL schedule makers. Putting two of the Green Bay Packers' biggest rivalries on back-to-back weeks was nasty work. Everyone in the league offices knows just how draining Bears week is, even if they are, at this point, kind of a formality?
Bears week is always emotionally draining, and now we just all have to quickly flip the page to 49ers week? You're not slick, Roger Goodell. (I know he's probably not to blame for this, but if I've learned anything from the past decade it's that when in doubt, yell at him.)
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But that's the way the cookie crumbles, and the Packers are now fully in SF mode after 48 hours of victory laps earlier this week. Every NFL game is important, but this one means just a little more – Packers fans don't need to be reminded about what role the Kyle Shanahan 49ers have played in their lives over the last few seasons, and despite this being a relatively low-stakes regular season game, the energy at Lambeau figures to be electric.
While doing his weekly media this week, Packers QB Jordan Love admitted that the team is a little bit more jazzed up for this one than usual.
Jordan Love says Packers "are hungry" to get revenge on 49ers for playoff losses
"I think ending the season, getting to the playoffs, being knocked out by the 49ers, whoever it would have been, that game's going to sit with you," Love told reporters. "That's what you kind of have to, you know, sit with all offseason. Just going back, watching that game, trying to see what you could have done better, or what you could have done differently in that game. So it definitely sits with you in the offseason, and then you move on. But just know that that's the team that knocked us out, we're definitely hungry for this game."
He's not wrong! And the best news about this week's game is that these 49ers kinnnnnda look like a shell of their former selves.
Maybe these are famous last words, but if the Packers are out for serious revenge this weekend, this is the right 49ers team to extract said revenge. All four teams in the NFC West are separated by one game, but another loss would figuratively end their season, which is good enough for me. If the Packers can't do it in the playoffs, doing it in Week 12 is more than enough.