It was not a good showing for the San Francisco 49ers in Lambeau Field on Sunday. The Niners lost in blowout fashion, dropping a 38-10 game to the Packers and falling to 5-6 on the year.
While 49ers fans will point to the number of injuries the team has been suffering, especially at the quarterback position (Brock Purdy missed the game with a shoulder injury), the Packers players didn't want to hear it. Packers cornerback Keisean Nixon called out the Niners for complaining about their injuries following the game, noting, "It's the NFL. It's not an excuse. We didn't have our quarterback. We won three games, so we don't wanna hear that. We came to play. They should've came to play."
Packers CB Keisean Nixon says 49ers can't blame loss on injuries
While Nixon has a point to a degree, once a team has to win games without its star quarterback, that's a much tougher task. Perhaps Nixon was thinking back to when the Packers were winning games earlier this year without Jordan Love and wondering why the 49ers couldn't do the same without Purdy.
What 49ers fans learned from this one is that without Purdy, this offense is not even close to being the same unit. The Niners also didn't have Nick Bosa on defense and that hurt that side of the ball greatly (hence the giving up 38 points part).
The team might have had Christian McCaffrey and George Kittle in the lineup but when you have a struggling Brandon Allen (who hadn't started a game since he was Joe Burrow's backup in 2021) throwing the ball instead, it makes a huge difference. This also threw cold water on the theory that anyone can run Kyle Shanahan's offense.
Hey, the Packers won the game handily on both sides of the ball but saying that injuries aren't an excuse isn't something you're going to hear Niners fans agree with. If Purdy was healthy and the team still played poorly, then maybe, but a team goes into the year expecting to have most of the team healthy. When the best players are missing multiple games, it's going to make it difficult to be a true contender and we're seeing that play out now.
This has been a disappointing season for the Niners who were hoping to be right back in NFC title contention again. Unfortunately, with the good guys dropping to 5-6 and now sitting four spots outside of the playoff picture and with just a 15% chance of making it to the postseason, things aren't looking good for the defending NFC champions.