SANTA CLARA — Kyle Shanahan and his 49ers coaching staff had begun preliminary preparations for four potential opponents going into wild card weekend. It became apparent before halftime Sunday they could zero in on the seventh-seeded Green Bay Packers, who jumped to a 27-0 lead against second-seeded Dallas.
It was then that Shanahan and Co. began serious work on the only team of the four the 49ers haven’t played this season. Yet Shanahan may have more good information on how the Packers operate than he would have the Cowboys, Philadelphia or Tampa Bay.
Without knowing it, the 49ers got work Thursday and Friday against a Packers offensive system that Shanahan and Green Bay coach Matt LaFleur grew up with as assistant coaches with Washington in 2010-13 under Kyle’s father Mike Shanahan.
Green Bay, 10-8 after its 48-32 road win against Dallas, comes to Levi’s Stadium Saturday in a divisional round game in which their offense is more like the 49ers’ than it has been since Mike Holmgren imported Bill Walsh’s system to Wisconsin in 1992.
The Packers, with third-year quarterback Jordan Love having a breakout season, have balanced their attack over the last five games in a way that mirrors much of what the 49ers do on offense. There are outside zone scheme runs mixed with play-action passes utilizing every available target among wide receivers, tight ends and running backs. Lots of motion and different formations.
Love has figured it out.
“He’s extremely consistent in what they’re asking him to do,” Shanahan said. “Matt’s very good at coaching the quarterback and you can see that their quarterback is buying in. He plays very well in their system and makes a lot of plays. He has a big arm and is a big dude too.”
When the 49ers had their first-team offense and defense face each other in practice last Friday, it was almost as if Nick Bosa and his teammates were getting an early dress rehearsal for an opponent that hadn’t been determined.
“A very similar scheme,” Bosa said. “Last week when we practiced against our guys it was good practice for what we’re going to see.”
LaFleur won’t say it, nor should he, but the trade that sent Aaron Rodgers to the New York Jets gave him the freedom to run the offense he has always wanted. There are spinoffs and alterations, but what Mike Shanahan passed down to Kyle, LaFleur and the Rams’ Sean McVay in the Washington years is still very much in evidence.
Last July, when Green Bay president and CEO Mark Murphy gave the media a sneak peek of what the Packers would look like with Rodgers gone.
“You’re going to see probably a little bit more of Matt’s true offense,” Murphy said. “We gave (Rodgers) the flexibility to change plays and get in and out of things that really helped, but I would anticipate a strong running game and play-action of that.”
Veteran quarterbacks who make huge money like Rodgers, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady essentially are their own offensive coordinators. In Love, LaFleur can do what Kyle Shanahan has done with Brock Purdy — mold a smart, quick-thinking decision-maker into a top-flight quarterback who for the most part operates within the constraints of the system.
Green Bay quarterback Jordan Love is coming off a nearly flawless performance against Dallas in the wild-card round. AP Photo
Love accepts criticism, blends in with his teammates and never makes it about himself. In the win over Dallas, Love was 16 of 21 for 272 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. In the victorious postgame locker room, after LaFleur told his team Love’s passer rating of 157.2 was a Packers record, there were shouts of “That’s my quarterback!” from joyous teammates.
Rodgers has gone into the rear-view mirror in Green Bay even faster than Brett Favre did when Rodgers took over.
“He always learns,” LaFleur said. “He learns from his mistakes and he learns from his successes and he comes in with a great mindset every day.”
Another connection — Green Bay offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich was on the 49ers’ staff under Shanahan as an assistant offensive line coach in 2017-18 and is fully immersed in the system LaFleur is imparting on Love.
In this case, a “system” quarterback is a good thing. And could be a dangerous thing for the 49ers.
“It was definitely different with Aaron out there,” Shanahan said. “I think it looks more similar to how I know Matt and his offense. That was always mixed in with Aaron too. Any time you’ve got a quarterback who’s played a long time you’re going to do that. But it’s more consistent with how they’re balancing it out.”
Shanahan stopped short of actually taking the ball as Tampa Bay’s Jon Gruden did in 2003 to simulate the Raiders’ Rich Gannon before Super Bowl XXXVII, but he’s already prepping the 49ers defense for what Love will do when confronted with certain situations.
“With the Shanahan tree there are similarities and Kyle is painting a picture of exactly where he wants to get the ball and where his decisions are supposed to go,” linebacker Fred Warner said. “it’s similar to what we do as an offense. I think that could possibly help us a little bit.”
While Purdy is farther along in terms of going off schedule and creating something when things break down, Bosa sees a quarterback in Love who is sticking to the plan.
“Aaron Rodgers is a Hall of Famer and unbelievable but he went outside the realm of coaching and sometimes it’s good when you have a guy who does what he’s coached to do,” Bosa said.
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The LaFleur offense, like Shanahan’s, has fail-safes and checkdowns and plays built-in to offset defensive looks, so it’s not as if the 49ers are going into the game with all the answers to the test.
“It’s familiar for sure, but at the same time you’ve really got to be on top of it, because if you’re not, all it takes is one play where a guy’s out of his gap, one guy is off his assignment and that’s an explosive play for a touchdown,” Warner said. “We haven’t played football in a long time — I don’t count the Rams game — we’ve got to be intentional in how we’re going about our week, our preparation, It’s paramount to our success Saturday night.”
The old cliche is “You can’t beat the system,” but the 49ers will at least have an opportunity to beat their own.
