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PACKERS CLOSE REGULAR SEASON WITH TENTH STRAIGHT WIN OVER BEARS, PROMPTLY BEGIN PRIMING FOR WILD CARD PLAYOFF AGAINST 49ERS ON ROAD
posted 12/28/98
THE GAME: On to San Francisco...
The Green Bay Packers (11-5), having closed out their fourth consecutive double-digit victory season with a 16-13 win over the Chicago Bears, launch intensive preparations for their NFC wild card playoff against the 49ers in San Francisco's 3Com Park next Sunday (January 3).
Kickoff for the contest, a sellout (70,140), is set for 3:15, CST (Wisconsin time).
The 49ers earned the right to host the playoff because of finishing with a better overall record, 12-4, than the Packers. They clinched a home date with a 38-19 victory over the St. Louis Rams in their regular season finale over the weekend.
The Packers had clinched their sixth consecutive playoff berth, a club record, a week earlier.
The wild card assignment takes the Packers to San Francisco in the postseason for the second year in a row. Last January, they made a successful invasion of the Bay Area, defeating the 49ers in the NFC Championship Game, 23-10, to qualify for Super Bowl XXXII against the Denver Broncos at San Diego.
If the Packers should win, they would face either the Minnesota Vikings or the Atlanta Falcons in a divisional playoff the weekend of January 9-10. Dallas hosts the Arizona Cardinals in next Saturday's NFC wild card playoff and, should the Cowboys win, the Packers would play the NFC Central Division champion Vikings in Minnesota and the Cowboys would play at Atlanta in the following week's divisional playoffs. If the Cowboys lose, Arizona would play at Minnesota and the Packers would play the NFC Western Division champion Falcons in Atlanta.
THE TV-RADIO COVERAGE: Pat Summerall will preside at the play-by-play microphone and John Madden will offer the analysis for the Fox Sports Network telecast of Sunday's wild card playoff, with Ron Pitts serving as the field reporter. Bob Stenner is the producer and Sandy Grossman directs.
The game also will be broadcast over the Packer Radio Network, with Jim Irwin calling the play-by-play and Max McGee and Larry McCarren providing the commentary and analysis, and nationally by CBS/Westwood One (Joel Meyers and Matt Millen).
POTENT IN THE PLAYOFFS: The Packers enter the playoffs as the most successful franchise in the National Football League's postseason history. They have won 22 playoff games while losing 9, a .710 winning percentage.
The Dallas Cowboys are next up with a 32-19 record and a .627 percentage while next Sunday's opponents, the 49ers, are close behind with a .622 mark, based on a 23-14 postseason record.
THE SERIES: The 49ers are beginning to look exceedingly familiar to the Packers - particularly at this time of year. In their imminent wild card playoff showdown with the Californians, they will be facing the Prospectors in the playoffs for the fourth consecutive year - for the third time in their venerable venue, 3Com Park, in the past four postseasons.
Sunday afternoon's contest will mark the 53rd meeting between the teams overall - their fourth in the playoffs. The Packers will go into action with a 3-and-0 record against the 49ers in the postseason, having scored a wild card victory at 3Com in 1995 (27-17), a divisional playoff win (35-14) following the 1996 season in Green Bay and the NFC Championship game success last January (23-10).
The Packers actually will be carrying a five-game winning streak against the 49ers into this weekend's showdown. It includes a 23-20 overtime victory in Green Bay's Lambeau Field during the 1996 season - the only overtime game in their mutual history - and a 36-22 victory during the just completed 1998 regular season (November 1).
All five of those victories, it should be noted, have been presided over by a San Francisco native and former 49ers offensive coordinator, Packers Head Coach Mike Holmgren.
The 49ers, however, lead the regular-season series. They have won 25 of the previous 49 in-season meetings, the Packers have won 23 and there has been one tie.
That lone standoff, which came in their mutual, 1965 regular-season finale, played a somewhat prominent role in the Packers' pro football history. It left the Packers and Baltimore Colts with identical 10-3-1 records at season's end, forcing a Western Conference playoff in Green Bay.
The ensuing playoff became the first overtime game in Packers annals, the Green and Gold ultimately prevailing, 13-10, by way of a Don Chandler's 25-year field goal at 13:39 of the sudden death period.
THE COACHES: The coaching "situation" for Sunday's playoff adds an intriguing dimension to the overall mix.
On the visitors' sideline in 3Com Park, there will be Mike Holmgren, a San Francisco native with inevitably strong ties to both the 49ers and the "City by the Bay," again leading the Packers against his old team - one which he helped win a pair of Super Bowls as the Prospectors' offensive coordinator in 1988 and 1989.
On the home sideline, there will be Steve Mariucci, who grew up an ardent Packers fan in Iron Mountain, Mich., located just 100 miles north of Green Bay, and now coaches the 49ers.
Adding a fillip to this "confrontation" is the fact that Mariucci served as Holmgren's quarterbacks coach for the latter's first four years with the Packers (1992-95), leaving to become head coach at the University of California-Berkeley for one year before becoming head coach of the 49ers in January of 1997.
Holmgren, who has just completed his seventh season as Green Bay's head coach, has amassed a collection of accomplishments without equal among his peers in the NFL coaching fraternity. Prominent in the rapidly growing list is the highest winning percentage among current active coaches with 100 or more coaching decisions. Sunday's season-ending success over the Bears was his 75th regular-season victory compared to 37 losses, a .670 percentage.
By maneuvering the Packers to an 11-5 record during the 1998 season, he also has led the Green and Gold to four consecutive double-digit victory seasons for only the second time in team history - and the first time in 66 years. He launched the skein with an 11-5 record in 1995 and followed with back-to-back 13-3 records in 1996 and 1997 prior to posting the second 11-5 mark in the season just past.
President Herbert Hoover was in the White House when the first and only other such achievement was launched by team founder E.L. "Curly" Lambeau, who from 1929 through 1932, posted successive records of 12-0-1, 10-3, 12-2-0 and 10-3-1.
Overall, Holmgren has compiled an 84-41 overall record since arriving upon the Green bay scene in 1992, including a 9-4 mark in the postseason.
In this remarkable process, he also has escorted the Packers to:
- Three straight NFC Central Division championships (1995-96-97);
- Back-to-back NFC Championship Game victories;
- Back-to-back Super Bowl appearances;
- A club-record 25 consecutive home-field victories, the second-longest such streak in NFL history;
- An imposing 47-5 record, including playoffs, in Green Bay's Lambeau Field;
- A 48-16 regular-season record over the past four seasons; and
- 13 regular-season victories on consecutive years (1996-97) for the first time in team history.
Mariucci, in his second season with the 49ers, is off to an impressive start in his NFL head-coaching career. In 1997, his baptismal year as an NFL head coach, he forged a club record for consecutive victories in a season, 11, and led the 49ers to the NFC Western Division title and the NFC Championship Game while recording a perfect 8-0 regular-season record at home, the latter the first such home mark for the 49ers since joining the NFL in 1950.
He followed last year's 13-3 record with another double-digit campaign this year, leading the Prospectors to a 12-4 mark, and owns a 25-7 overall, regular-season record.
THE LAST (PLAYOFF) TIME: In last January's NFC Conference Championship Game, the result was triggered by Eugene Robinson's second-quarter interception of a Steve Young pass. It was highly opportune from the Packers perspective, the 49ers having arrived at the Green Bay 30-yard line four plays earlier by way of a 43-yard pass-run collaboration between Young and wide receiver J. J. Stokes.
With San Francisco in a third-and-8 situation at the Green Bay 28-yard line and trailing by only 3-0, Young unfurled a pass intended for tight end Brent Jones. Robinson, however, swept in front of Jones, pulled in the football and returned his "pick" 58 yards to the 49ers' 28-yard line before being run down by 49ers center Chris Dalman.
Two plays later, quarterback Brett Favre found split end Antonio Freeman in the open and the latter, maneuvering deftly through the San Francisco secondary, raced 27 yards into the end zone. The conversion by Ryan Longwell, who earlier had provided the Packers' first points with a 19-yard field goal in the first quarter, increased the Packers' lead to 10-0.
The 49ers ended their scoring drought with a 28-yard Gary Anderson field goal but the Packers retaliated with a 43-yarder by Longwell on the final play of the first half, sending the Green and Gold into the intermission with a 13-3 lead.
With the 10-point advantage, the Packers turned over the ball control responsibilities to running back Dorsey Levens in the second half and he responded with an outstanding performance, pounding out 71 yards with 17 of his game-high 27 rushing attempts on the way to a new, Packers postseason single-game rushing record of 114 yards, eclipsing his 112-yard effort in a divisional playoff win over Tampa Bay a week earlier.
Favre, meanwhile, proved remarkably efficient under the soggy conditions, completing 16 of 27 passes for 222 yards and one touchdown without an interception, while being sacked only once, the latter a tribute to his offensive line.
The Packers' defense, on its part, held the 49ers well in check, limiting San Francisco to a lone field goal. The 49ers' touchdown did not come until only 2:52 remained in the game and it was a special teams project, Chuck Levy returning the Packers' final kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown.
Coordinator Fritz Shurmur's defenders shut down San Francisco's running game, holding the Niners to 33 yards in 18 attempts, an average of 1.8 yards per rush.
THE 1996 DIVISIONAL PLAYOFF (January 4, 1997): Ignited by their record-breaking punt returner, Desmond Howard, the Packers swept to an early 14-0 lead in rain-swept Lambeau Field, then proceeded from there to a 35-14 victory over the 49ers.
Howard, who had broken the NFL's record for punt return yardage during the regular season, returned the first punt of the game 71 yards for a touchdown to stun the visiting Prospectors, then returned Tommy Thompson's second punt 46 yards to the San Francisco 7-yard line, setting up a 4-yard Brett Favre scoring pass to flanker Andre Rison two plays later.
The Packers expanded that early advantage to 21-0 in the second quarter with the aid of Craig Newsome's interception of an Elvis Grbac pass. It took Favre only three plays to get the Packers in the end zone a third time, running back Edgar Bennett completing the project with a 2-yard burst up the middle.
The Packers appeared to have things well in hand at that juncture. Two subsequent turnovers, however, led to a pair of 49ers touchdowns, reducing Green Bay's lead to 21-14.
The Green and Gold then rebounded from those misadventures to mount a 72-yard scoring drive, capped by Antonio Freeman's recovery of a Bennett fumble in the end zone for Green Bay's fourth touchdown.
The issue then was largely settled when the Packers completed their scoring with only 5:31 remaining. Chris Hayes recovered a Terry Kirby fumble, forced by safety Mike Prior, at the San Francisco 32-yard line. Favre then put together a six-play drive, climaxed by Bennett's 11-yard sweep of right end for the touchdown.
Favre, playing with restraint under the tricky conditions, completed 11 of 15 passes for 79 yards overall - without an interception.
Linebacker Wayne Simmons, as he had done a year earlier in the postseason, played a major role in a tightfisted defensive performance, leading the charge with 8 tackles, 6 of them solo stops.
THE 1995 DIVISIONAL PLAYOFF (January 6, 1996): Taking command virtually from the opening whistle, the Packers forced an early turnover, immediately converted it into a touchdown, and had mounted a permanent, 21-0 lead early in the second quarter with the aid of a precise passing performance by quarterback Brett Favre.
Favre, exhibiting a remarkably hot hand, completed 15 of 17 passes during the first half, two of them to tight ends Keith Jackson and Mark Chmura, respectively, for touchdowns en route to a 27-17 victory.
The defense, keyed by a virtuosic effort from linebacker Wayne Simmons, meanwhile was stifling the 49ers' running game and exerting intense pressure upon San Francisco quarterback Steve Young, forcing him to put the football in the air a playoff-record 65 times in a vain effort to carry the day.
It was a Simmons-Newsome collaboration which set the tone for the afternoon - immediately following a temporary downer - Tim McDonald's block of a 44-yard Chris Jacke field goal attempt after the Packers' game-opening drive was halted at the San Francisco 26-yard line.
Minutes later, on San Francisco's first play from scrimmage, Simmons' thunderous tackle forced a fumble by 49ers fullback Adam Walker. Newsome, nearby, scooped up the loose football and raced down the sidelines into the 49ers' end zone in the eighth minute of the first period - and the Packers were on their way.
THE CONNECTIONS: Besides the ties of Head Coaches Mike Holmgren and Steve Mariucci to their respective opponents, there are other similar elements involved in Sunday's game. From the Packers' perspective, offensive coordinator Sherman Lewis spent nine years on the 49ers' coaching staff (1983-91) before coming to Green Bay and running backs coach Harry Sydney had a five-year playing tenure with the Niners, helping them win back-to-back Super Bowls in 1988 and 1989.
The 49ers, in turn, have two former Packers assistant coaches in major roles on their coaching staff - Marty Mornhinweg as offensive coordinator and John Marshall as defensive coordinator.
On the field, two former Packers will be wearing the 49ers' burgundy and gold - starting defensive tackle Gabe Wilkins and backup quarterback Ty Detmer.
The Packers also have an ex-49er in their midst...placekicker Ryan Longwell, who was with the Prospectors in their minicamps in 1997 before joining the Packers off the waiver wire and becoming the team's leading scorer as a rookie.
THE LANDETA FILE: Packers punter Sean Landeta Sunday set two new club single-season records - for net punting average and punts inside-the-20. He closed out the season with a 37.1-yard net average and 30 punts inside-the-20, eclipsing the previous marks of 36.3 yards, set by Bryan Wagner in 1993 and matched by Craig Hentrich in 1996, and 28 inside-the-20 efforts by Hentrich in 1996.
THE (NFL) STATISTICAL UPDATE: Statistically, the Packers closed out the 1998 regular season fifth on offense and fourth on defense in the NFL's final figures.
The offense ranked third in passing and 25th in rushing while the defense finished the year fourth against the run and 10th against the pass.
Coordinator Fritz Shurmur's defenders were second overall in fewest first downs allowed, with 246, two more than league leader Tampa Bay and also in lowest average yards per first-down plays by opponents, 3.86. San Diego led in the latter category with a 3.84-yard average.
Green Bay's offense ranked fifth in average yards per game with 352.3, third in passing yards with an average of 256.9 yards per game and led the NFC in average drive-start with a 29.4-yard mark.
Individually, wide receiver Antonio Freeman led the NFL in receiving yards with 1,424, a personal career-high and the third-highest single season total in Packers history, ranking behind only Robert Brooks' club-record 1,497 in 1995 and Sterling Sharpe's 1,461 in 1992.
Freeman also finished second in the NFC - and fifth in the league as a whole - with 84 receptions and fifth in NFC non-kicker scoring with 86 points, a figure which, poetically, matches his jersey number. Additionally, he closed out the season third in the NFC in third-down receptions with 27 for 556 yards, a 20.6-yard average, and 6 touchdowns.
Appropriately, Reggie White ended on a high note in what he says is his final season, leading the NFC in sacks with 16.0. Seattle's Michael Sinclair claimed overall league honors with 16.5.
Brett Favre closed out his seventh season as Green Bay's resident quarterback as the league leader in passing yards with 4,212. San Francisco's Steve Young was runnerup with 4,170 yards.
Favre also finished third in the NFL in touchdown passes with 31, five behind Young's 36, and led the NFC in third-down passing with a 113.0 rating, based on 96 completions in 149 attempts, a 64.4 percentage, for 1,447 yards and 15 touchdowns, with 6 interceptions.
Overall, Favre's final passer rating is 87.8, based in part on 347 completions in 551 attempts, both league highs, and 23 interceptions.
Placekicker Ryan Longwell closed out his season as the league's fourth-ranking scorer with 128 points on 29 field goals in 33 attempts and 41 conversions in 43 attempts.
Fellow specialist Roell Preston emerged as the league leader in total return yards with 1,895 - a club record 1,497 via 57 kickoff returns, a 26.3-yard average which ranked sixth in the league, and 398 yards on 44 punt returns, a 9.0-yard average, good for ninth place in the NFC.
Cornerback Tyrone Williams tied for fifth place among NFC interceptors with 5.thefts.
Punter Sean Landeta ranked eighth in NFC punting with a 42.9-yard gross average and a 37.1-yard net average, the latter the fourth-best in the conference.
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