GREEN BAY, Wisc. – Kyle Shanahan and his first-year defensive coordinator, Nick Sorensen, covered their faces with playsheets for a sideline chat. Shanahan was hot. There was no hiding why.
The 49ers’ disheveled defense drew back-to-back penalties for having 12 men on the field from its own 10-yard line. That set up an inevitable touchdown by the Green Bay Packers: the first of Josh Jacobs’ three 1-yard touchdown runs in their 38-10 rout at Lambeau Field.
It was the 49ers’ most lopsided loss ever to the Packers in their 74-game history, and it was payback for last season’s divisional playoff game in which the 49ers rallied for a 24-21 win.
Beyond those defensive gaffes, a lot else went wrong Sunday for the 49ers (5-6) as they lost a second straight game, with another road game looming next Sunday night in Buffalo.
With quarterback Brock Purdy (shoulder) and left tackle Trent Williams (ankle) unable to suit up, it wasn’t in the 49ers’ best interest to force Purdy’s fill-in, Brandon Allen, into a high-scoring affair with the host Packers (8-3).
And with Nick Bosa missing his first game, the 49ers’ defense figured to look inferior — but not incompetent. Down 10-0 and unable to stop Green Bay’s ground game, the 49ers bafflingly drew consecutive penalties for too many men on the field. Linebacker De’Vondre Campbell, formerly of the Packers, was summoned to the sideline after that second penalty. Two snaps later, Jacobs scored, giving Green Bay a 17-0 lead with 6:33 until halftime.
As the fourth quarter began, Shanahan was having another sideline chat, this time with Allen as players switched sides during the intermission. Could they overcome a double-digit, fourth-quarter deficit the way some of their opponents have beaten them this season?
Instead of scoring, the 49ers lost fumbles on consecutive one-play drives, first by Allen on a sack at the Niners’ 9-yard line, then by McCaffrey on a 23-yard catch-and-run to midfield. The Packers converted both turnovers into touchdowns as the 49ers allowed their most points since a 44-23 loss in October 2022 to Kansas City, in McCaffrey’s debut.
Littering Lambeau with turnovers, penalties, injuries, and missed tackles — hallmarks of a bad team, which the 49ers have become only a year after marching toward the Super Bowl, a run that included that comeback playoff win over the Packers.
Highlights? Well …
George Kittle, a Wisconsin native, scored his first-ever touchdown at Lambeau Field to bail the 49ers out of a first-half funk and pull them within 17-7. Allen capped the 11-play, 65-yard drive by finding Kittle over the middle once he slipped past linebacker Quay Walker. It was Allen’s 11th career touchdown pass, and his first since 2021 as Joe Burrow’s backup in Cincinnati.
Kittle’s 3-yard scoring catch was his eighth touchdown this season. He has scored in seven of nine games he’s played, having missed last Sunday’s loss at Seattle and a Week 3 loss at Los Angeles because of hamstring injuries.
The 49ers turned a 21-yard catch by Kittle into more points: Jake Moody’s 48-yard field goal, cutting their deficit to 24-10 with 2:12 left in the third quarter.
Allen led a pair of promising drives into Packers’ territory earlier in the third quarter, only for one to end on a fourth-and-2 incompletion and the other to be halted by Xavier McKinney’s interception of a third-down pass that went off Deebo Samuel’s hands. The Packers parlayed that turnover into Jacobs’ second touchdown run, which was set up by Renardo Green’s pass-interference penalty in the end zone.
Jacobs’ first touchdown run came after the too-many-men penalties. At that point, Allen and the 49ers had run only six offensive plays, they’d been outgained 197-21, and they had possessed the ball all of 4 minutes, 22 seconds ( while the Packers had it the other 19:05).
The Packers generously led only 17-7 at halftime, denied a bigger margin when Christian Watson dropped a potential 49-yard touchdown catch at the 5-yard line with 30 seconds to go. Jordan Love again launched deep shots on his two ensuing passes which were nicely defended by Green and Deommodore Lenoir.
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Leonard Floyd sacked Love twice, but he hobbled to the sideline clutching at his lower right back late in the game.
The 49ers defense failed to create a takeaway. They allowed a 67-yard touchdown drive to open the game, with tight end Tucker Kraft scoring on Love’s 11-yard touchdown pass. Jacobs’ 18-yard gain up the middle on his first carry set the tone for that opening drive and the game. He had 106 yards on 26 carries.
Adding injuries to insult, the 49ers defense saw at least three players injured: cornerback Green (neck), defensive tackle Jordan Elliott (concussion), and linebacker Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles (knee).
In the end, it was the 49ers’ third-largest margin of defeat in Shanahan’s eight seasons.