49ers: 5 crucial takeaways from Sunday Night Football loss vs. Packers

The 49ers fought hard but fell 30-28 to the Packers on a last-second field goal.

While to neutrals watching the game, it was one of the most entertaining spectacles of the year, San Francisco 49ers fans certainly wouldn’t be sharing that sentiment as they watched their team fall 30-28 to the Green Bay Packers in a Sunday Night Football heartbreaker.

The Niners were behind for the entire game but looked like completing an impressive comeback when they took a 28-27 lead with under a minute to go, but there was too much time left on the clock for Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers who coolly put the Packers into field goal range.

One kick later, and a lot of hearts bleeding red and gold were broken. San Francisco dropped to 2-1, and the team will be ruing what was an exceptionally slow start.

With such a big game, there were many things to take away from it.

No, 1: Refs were trigger happy with pass-interference flags

It’s usually never productive to be overly critical of the officials and point fingers at them for calls you don’t agree with. Games are seldom decided by a contentious call.

It didn’t cost the 49ers the game, but the amount of pass-interference flags thrown on the team were approaching levels that were frankly ridiculous.

In the first half, the Packers had two controversial pass-interference penalties that drew long penalties. In both calls, there was minimal contact and the pass wasn’t close to being catchable.

In what ended up being such a close game, those calls ended up being very important in the grand scheme of things. Not responsible for the loss alone, but certainly one component of it.

In fairness to the Packers, they had their share of contentious calls against them as well. But this is a Niners website, and those calls are better left to the Packers writers.

San Francisco’s defense didn’t play particularly well, but the flags sure didn’t help.