The last two times the Packers defense has faced the 49ers, things have not gone well for them.
Last January, the 49ers ran all over Green Bay and took a 45-31 playoff win as a result. In Week One this season, it was the passing game that that propelled them to a 34-28 victory. In the two games, the 49ers picked up 1,073 yards in offense and there’s a third loss from Week One of the 2012 season that makes the history even worse for Green Bay’s defense.
That’s why coach Mike McCarthy stressed the need for the defense to step up this weekend. McCarthy said he loves “our defense” and expressed confidence in defensive coordinator Dom Capers while making it clear what needed to happen when the unit is on the field.
“Dom Capers is a competitor,” McCarthy said, via ESPN.com. “It’s a very important game to all of us. This isn’t a contest to see who this game’s more important [to]. We’re a football team. We know that one area needs to play to the other and so forth. But the defense needs to play its best game of the year. We need to improve off of how we’ve performed here in the past.”
Should Capers’ defense get strafed by the 49ers again after a regular season that ended with bottom-tier rankings in most areas, there may be some agitation for a change in defensive mastermind in Green Bay after three straight years when defensive breakdowns contributed to the end of a football season.