Packers vs. 49ers: Watching the Pack Leaves Niners Fans Green (Bay) With Envy

Well, that happened.

Technically I'm referring to Packers 34, 49ers 16, but I could just as easily be referring to Rams 19, Cardinals 6, or Seahawks 31, Panthers 14. The NFC West is nothing if not predictable.

Anyone with a lick of sense knew the results in the division would play out this way, and I believe, in their heart of hearts, the higher-ups with the 49ers knew too.

The most important conclusion to take away from this game?

It's not a big deal.

The second important conclusion to take away from this game?

This is, definitively, no matter which fellow surnamed Smith plays quarterback, a bad football team.

The third and final important conclusion to take away from the game?

That they're a bad football team, and it's not a big deal.

At 4-8, the 49ers are two games in arrears to the Rams and the Seahawks, but they have games remaining with each, as well a season finale at Candlestick Park against the terrible Cardinals. If they win all three of those games, the odds are pretty decent they'll win a three-way tiebreaker among 7-9 teams by virtue of superior division record.

The Rams, besides hosting the 49ers in Week 16, are at the champion Saints next week, hosting the Chiefs in the battle of Missouri after that and finish their year on the road at Seattle. If they win two of those then they'll deserve to win the division, and Godspeed to them.

The Seahawks, meanwhile, visit the Niners next week with a chance to effectively put us all out of our misery in Week 14, a month ahead of schedule. After that, they'll be home against the NFC's best team, the Atlanta Falcons, on the road at the opposite corner of the country at Tampa Bay, and finishing up back in Seattle against the Rams in a game that will quite likely determine the division.

Again, if they win two of those four, they'll deserve to win the division. I won't wish them well, though, because Pete Carroll's their coach and he's a charlatan.

As long as the Rams and Seahawks lose the games they're suppose to lose, the 49ers are still alive, for the time being.

Whoever wins the division won't have to apologize to anyone and certainly shouldn't be asked to. All this phony hand-wringing by the pundits, both national and local, is frankly a bunch of nonsense. Just two seasons ago, the San Diego Chargers had the same record the 49ers have now, and then they won four in a row, including a 52-21 Week 17 blitzing of the 8-7 Denver Broncos, to capture the AFC West.

Not only did Norval Turner's merry band of cockroaches make the playoffs with an 8-8 record, but they beat Peyton Manning and the Colts in the Wild Card round, which doesn't sound too impressive now, but trust me, was a big deal back then.

The question isn't whether the 49ers deserve to make the playoffs, because plenty of bad teams have before. And the question isn't whether qualifying for the playoffs would make the 49ers "good," because they've already proven that they can't beat anyone worthwhile and they've run out of chances to try.

No, the question with them is this: Can their coaches get out of their own way?

The team continues to make so many puzzling decisions on offense that you wonder if their goal is to actually drive their fans into pitchfork-wielding mutiny.

First quarter, they're up 3-0 already and mounting another drive in their second series. Brian Westbrook gains four yards on first down and five-and-a-half on second down. Third-and-inches? Now the most conservative team in the league decides to get wacky and pass. Incomplete and a punt.

Second quarter, they trail 7-6 after the Packers scored on a 57-yard bomb to Greg Jennings over Shawntae Spencer, with safety Dashon Goldson nowhere to be found.

How do the 49ers respond? Runs, more like forward-pointing stumbles, by Anthony Dixon on first and second down, setting up a 3rd-and-long. Punt.

Third quarter, Packers score again to make it 21-13, this time on a 61-yard pass to Donald Driver, where everyone in the secondary played two-hand touch and let him slalom to the end zone. It's the kind of play you usually see the Lions or Raiders defense make, but not the proud Niners.

Again they answer with two runs up the gut by Dixon. This time, however, they wound up converting the 3rd-and-long on a nice pass to Vernon Davis, got a drive going and wound up 1st-and-goal at the Green Bay 9-yard line.

So, of course, two more runs up the middle. They settle for a field goal and never threaten again.

The fact that Dixon got so much work at all was the hardest to figure. A week after Westbrook ran around the Cardinals for 136 yards on 23 carries, he was reduced to just nine attempts at Green Bay, the same as Dixon.

You'd think Dixon would be used pretty much just on short-yardage and goal-line plays or to give Westbrook a blow, but in the game he was pretty much used as the first- and second-down back, with two-time Pro Bowler Westbrook backing him up.

Furthermore the Niners only attempted one pass to Westbrook and never tried to get the screen game going with him, when being a receiver out of the backfield has been his specialty for years.

They didn't trust Westbrook enough to put the game in his hands, and they didn't trust Smith enough to let him match Aaron Rodgers throw for throw. Instead they trusted Dixon, a rookie drafted in the sixth round.

You figure these guys out and let me know what they're thinking.

On offense, they've chosen to cast their lot with Troy Smith, a quarterback who lets them use only a fraction of their playbook and who can only succeed by establishing the running game first, because the play-action pass is the only kind he can execute.

On the bench, they have a guy in Alex Smith who knows the entire playbook inside and out and is comfortable playing out of the shotgun, which you would think would be ideal for a team missing their star halfback and whose backup excels mainly as a receiver.

They won't play Alex Smith because they've convinced themselves Troy Smith is the savior, when all he's really saved them from is having to play Alex Smith.

On defense, not one member of the secondary is having what can even be charitably described as a mediocre year, and they've slipped to the point where whenever anyone calls a running play against the Niners you feel like they're doing it to be charitable.

So yes, anyway you slice it, these guys are bad. Hardly a newsflash.

Are they bad enough to be eliminated from the worst division in football with three games to go? We'll find out soon enough.