Why 49ers are expecting a different Aaron Rodgers in the NFC Championship game
Kyle Shanahan didn’t bite.
The 49ers head coach, standing in the Levi’s Stadium auditorium next to the conference championship trophy in front of a throng of media members who typically don’t cover the team, wasn’t going to provide a soundbite for a worn-out story line ahead of the biggest game of the year.
Do you have any recollections about the 2005 draft and Aaron Rodgers falling to the Packers at pick No. 24, Kyle?
“Yeah, I remember,” Shanahan said, offering a wry three-word answer after giving the previous question about left tackle Joe Staley a 194-word soliloquy.
The prying reporter asked a follow-up question, hoping Shanahan would offer one of his typically-thoughtful answers about a sliding-doors moment in NFL history.
Instead, Shanahan decided not to.
“I was a quality control coach in Tampa Bay. They only asked me receiver questions at that time,” he said, drawing laughter from from reporters.
The irksome reporter’s plan was to pull a quote from Shanahan about how Rodgers getting passed over by the 49ers nearly 15 years ago would have no impact on Sunday’s NFC title game. Or how it fueled Rodgers to become the player he is, like Richard Sherman falling to the fifth round of his draft and using that as a chip on his shoulder throughout his Hall of Fame career.
Smith over Rodgers, the rest is history
The shelf life of the 49ers-Rodgers story line died at some point during the last two playoff games between the the two teams during the 2011 and 2013 seasons.
San Francisco, of course, tapped Alex Smith with the top overall pick in the 2005 draft and Rodgers went 23 picks later to Green Bay. The rest is history, and the 49ers clearly made a mistake by passing on one of the best quarterbacks of a generation for a player who didn’t become a quality starting quarterback until his seventh year in the league.
Worse yet, Rodgers grew up in Chico, where he was a 49ers fan before playing his college ball at Cal an hour up the road.
“I usually dreamed about playing for the 49ers as a kid,” Rodgers told reporters in Green Bay this week. “But obviously that thing passed a long time ago.”
It’s fair to wonder about the heights the 49ers might have gone if they went with Rodgers instead of Smith (would fans talk about Rodgers in the same breath as Joe Montana and Steve Young?).
It’s also fair to point out the current version of Shanahan’s team wouldn’t exist if Rodgers spent his career in a gold helmet.
The butterfly effect from passing on Rodgers years later led to San Francisco landing on Shanahan, general manager John Lynch, Jimmy Garoppolo and the league’s best pass defense since 2009. All are reasons why the 49ers enter Sunday as seven-point favorites over a Packers team they thumped in late November, 37-8.
“(We were) making sure we stopped the run early and when it came back to the drop-back pass game, guys were just being relentless in their rushes,” defensive lineman DeForest Buckner said. “(Robert) Saleh was being aggressive with calls, calling pressures. I feel like getting constant pressure in Aaron’s face, obviously you could see the frustration on his face.”
Expecting a better version of Rodgers
Rodgers was sacked five times and was visibly upset with how the game went. The 49ers got up 23-0 in the first half and things unraveled quickly for Green Bay in front of a national TV audience because the game was flexed to prime time.
But San Francisco is expecting a vastly different game than that previous match up. Rodgers is the No. 1 reason why. The sure-fire Hall of Famer isn’t going to repeat arguably the worst starting performance of his career when he averaged a personal low 3.2 yards per pass attempt and 2.8 yards per play overall.
Rodgers is going to bounce back because a legacy-enhancing Super Bowl trip is on the line.
“He can make a throw in any situation. He’s never out of the game,” Shanahan said. “I think we were up 23-0 at halftime versus him (in November) and he made it 23-8 after his first drive. It’s 23-8 halfway through the third quarter, and I think it’s a tight game because of who is over there at quarterback.”
Rodgers has a 100.0 passer rating in his 18-game playoff career. Sunday will mark his third NFC Championship game on the road, while most 49ers will be playing in their second playoff games every following last week’s drubbing of the Vikings.
And Rodgers was clutch when he was needed most last week against the Seattle Seahawks, converting a pair of impressive third downs on the final drive to put the game on ice and ensure it ended with comeback specialist Russell Wilson on the sideline instead of under center.
“There’s probably not anyone on the planet who throws better than him,” Shanahan said of Rodgers. “There might be a couple guys that you can compare with him, but his arm talent is just unbelievable, his athletic ability is unbelievable. He’s always been able to run around, extend plays, make throws from any angle and he’s a very intelligent guy who can get them in the right play and it’s hard to throw stuff at him that he’s not prepared for.”
Garoppolo: ‘As long as we win, I’m pretty happy’
Opposite Rodgers will be Garoppolo, who is coming off an uneven performance in which he was asked to throw the fewest passes of the season. The 49ers focused their game plan on running the ball, which they did a season-high 47 times, and pushed Minnesota’s talented defensive front around.
Garoppolo threw just six times after his bad decision to try hitting receiver Deebo Samuel on a post route with All-Pro linebacker Eric Kendricks leaping for the interception just before halftime.
Garoppolo this season has had spectacular games (in New Orleans and Seattle, versus the Packers and both games against Arizona). But in others, like last week, the middling Garoppolo did just enough to help the 49ers win his first postseason start and improve his overall record as a starter to 20-5.
The former Patriot, of course, helped his team go 13-3 in the regular season and earn the top overall seed in the NFC, setting up the chance to play at home Sunday for the Super Bowl.
Garoppolo was asked about the apparent lack of credit he receives from the outside world despite his prodigious record as a starter.
“As long as we win, I’m pretty happy,” he said.
This story was originally published January 16, 2020 at 6:18 AM.