A week before Christmas in 1965, I was playing in a pick up basketball game on the asphalt court with chain hoop nets at Crestmoor elementary school. I had taken off my University of Santa Clara sweatshirt, a gift from my brother who was attending school there, and placed my transistor radio that was tuned to KSFO on top of it behind the pole that held the backboard.
I had turned the volume all the way up so I could hear Lon Simmons call the game from Kezar Stadium between the San Francisco 49ers and Green Bay Packers. My interest in the National Football League had been peeked a month before by a game between the Baltimore Colts and Minnesota Vikings. With backup quarterback Gary Cuozzo replacing an injured Johnny Unitas, the Colts had upset Fran Tarkenton and his Vikings in Minnesota.
How did that happen?
It was the seed that planted my interest in studying the motivation that dictates results on the field. I had found that teams missing their starting quarterback often had an inspired effort that nearly half the time had them win their games straight-up and nearly 70% of the time beat the point spread. That work didn’t explain the game result I was listening to on that December afternoon while shooting hoops.
In 1965, the 49ers finished in the middle of the Western Conference standings while the Packers, led by legendary head coach Vince Lombardi, were battling the Colts for the division lead. Jack Christiansen was coaching the Niners that year, another nondescript mentor of San Francisco before the team finally ended a twelve year playoff drought five years later with Dick Nolan leading the team.
The early days of my handicapping did not have criteria that showed the overmatched 49ers would battle the champion Packers play-for-play and end this December matchup in a tie, 24-24.
How did that happen?
This is what I love so much about my work. The uncertainty that precedes certain results. When a game is over, take last year’s Super Bowl for example, the winning team seems so obvious. How could anyone have gone against Tom Brady as an underdog on his home field before the Buccaneers beat the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV?
Seems easy in the rearview mirror, but was not the popular choice among most bettors before the game was played.
How could anyone have taken the 49ers over the Packers in 1965 even with the generous point spread?
Most didn’t, and most lost.
Tonight, the 49ers are meeting Green Bay again, and most are taking the number one seed Packers giving the points with confidence that Aaron Rodgers will have his way with the 49ers defense.
I see it differently.
While the 49ers hit a lull in their season, losing five of six games that began with a Week Three home loss to the Packers, 30-28, no team right now is playing with more team unity and team spirit than Kyle Shannon’s squad. Over the past ten games, San Francisco has won eight including a pair of contests the past two weeks that if lost they wouldn’t have reached today’s Divisional showdown at Lambeau Field.
On the final day of the regular season San Francisco needed a win in Los Angeles over a Rams team that could have clinched the NFC West Division title with a home victory. The Rams bolted to a 17-0 lead before the 49ers got on the scoreboard in the final moments of the first half with a field goal. In the second half against the Rams, the 49ers took the kickoff and drove to a touchdown, followed not too long after with another TD to knot the score at 17.
A costly interception in the redzone inspired a Rams team to go on a drive to retake the lead, 24-17, and with just over a minute left on the clock the 49ers started a drive from the 12-yard line. In less than a minute of game clock, quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo drove San Francisco 88 yards to a tying touchdown and soon-there-after an overtime win.
On the same day, the Seattle Seahawks upset the Arizona Cardinals, allowing the Rams to win the West without the final day of the regular season victory.
Last week, in Dallas against the Cowboys, the 49ers were again road underdogs. San Francisco took a 16-7 halftime lead and expanded that to 23-7 entering the fourth quarter. An ill-advised throw by Garoppolo was picked by Dallas midway through the final quarter and the ensuing touchdown cut the 49ers advantage to six points, 23-17.
While some might say Dallas beat themselves last week, suffering 14 costly penalties and running out the clock on themselves to end the game, as the game unfolded the 49ers were the better team at every critical juncture of offense, defense and special teams.
Their victory in Dallas sends them to a frigid Lambeau Field for today’s showdown with the Packers.
I know why the 49ers played the powerful Packers to a tie in 1965, my future end of the year tendencies illuminates the reasons. I know why the 49ers beat the Rams and the Cowboys the past two weeks. I also know why I think they are going to upset the Packers in Green Bay tonight.
I also suspect that after the game everyone will think it was obvious no matter who wins.
Qoxhi Picks: San Francisco 49ers (+5) over Green Bay Packers