You might think that the Packers are on a two-game losing streak of sorts after losses to the Giants in playoffs last year and to the 49ers on Sunday.
You’d be wrong, though. At least you’d be wrong if you looked at the world the same way as the Packers defense which seems to believe the team is actually on a two-game beating themselves streak.
Linebacker Clay Matthews made a stir in August when he said that the Giants didn’t beat the Packers at Lambeau in January, something that seemed to resonate with one of his teammates. Cornerback Jarrett Bush peddled the same line in the aftermath of San Francisco’s 30-22 season-opening victory.
“We beat ourselves. They really didn’t beat us,” Bush said, via Mike Woods of the Green Bay Press-Gazette. “We just have to hunker down and make sure we’re gap sound and get on the same page. Obviously, small things being miscommunicated on the field become big things, so they exploited us and that’s what happened.”
Outside the Packers defensive meeting room, people tend to think that the team doing a better job of exploiting the opposition’s miscommunications and mistakes gets to say that they have beaten the opposition. And the 49ers did a lot more than just exploit Packers mistakes on Sunday. They helped to create them with sharp offensive execution and the stout defensive play that got them to the NFC Championship Game last year.
In short, the 49ers beat the Packers and they beat them fairly decisively. Just like the Giants did in January. At some point the Packers might want to focus more on stopping that from happening instead of trying to rewrite history after the fact.