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Well, boys and girls, the regular season is upon us at last. Which means it is time for me to get back to what I am best at ... Packers history reports against their next opponent.
This means the entry this week is against the San Francisco 49ers. San Francisco is one of three teams to have joined the NFL from the All-America Football Conference in 1950 (along with the Cleveland Browns and the first Baltimore Colts), and the Packers have played them since then.
More after the jump.
The Packers and 49ers have been playing on a rather regular basis since 1950. For the most part, the teams played each other twice a year from 1950 to 1966 (the only years this didn't happen were 1951 and 1952). The Packers currently hold a 30-25-1 mark against the 49ers in the regular season, and Green Bay leads the postseason series 4-1. The head-to-head totals for points scored against the other team in the regular season is much closer. Green Bay only leads by a touchdown.
The Packers won the first game against San Francisco, but as the Packers of the 1950s were not a very good team, the 49ers got the better of them in most of the games, winning 13 of 16 Packers-49ers games until the 1958 season.
In 1959, with the arrival of Vince Lombardi, the Packers began to dominate the series. Green Bay won 11 of the next 13 games against the 49ers up until the first game between the teams in 1965. After that, the teams tied 24-24 in San Francisco, the only tie in the series to date, and from 1966-1980, the home team won every game except the 1976 meeting. Not surprisingly, the series in that span was six Packers wins compared to five 49ers wins.
In 1981, the 49ers became dominant not just over the Packers but also the whole NFL due to the Bill Walsh/Joe Montana combination, and the series against the Packers reflected that. San Francisco won four of five games in that span, the only Packers win being a 21-17 shocker in San Francisco in 1989 (Green Bay's first road win over the 49ers in 26 years). Curiously, all the 1980s 49ers wins over Green Bay occurred in either Green Bay or Milwaukee, a reversal of the late 1960s and 1970s.
In 1996, the Packers finally played the 49ers in Green Bay, and won 23-20, in overtime, on a Chris Jacke field goal. They have not lost to the 49ers in the regular season since, winning all nine regular season games. One game, the 1996 game, went to overtime, and the 49ers came close to winning in 2000, 2002, and 2009. Three of these games were in San Francisco (1999, 2002, and 2006) while six were in Green Bay (1996, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2009, and 2010).
There was no playoff game between the Packers and 49ers until the 1995 season, when the Packers shocked everyone in the NFL by winning quite easily by the score of 27-17 in San Francisco. A year later, the Packers won 35-14 in a very muddy Lambeau Field. Green Bay won the NFC Championship in San Francisco in 1997 by the score of 23-10, yet the 1998 game was a heartbreaker for Packers fans as the 49ers won 30-27 with three seconds left. A non-call on what appeared to be a fumble by Jerry Rice gave the 49ers and Steve Young another chance to win the game. The last playoff game between the teams was the 2001 game in Lambeau Field, the last game played at Lambeau Field before the renovations in 2002.
What are your memories of the Packers playing the 49ers?
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