Chapped lips have to be all that keeps Green Bay from licking its chops at the chance to play San Francisco, the, chuckle, best team in pro football.
By beating Minnesota 38-22 Saturday, the 49ers get the NFC championship game at home next weekend, not so much an earned advantage as something that just sort of happened.
This 49ers team may be the most overrated, least impressive bunch in San Francisco’s long tenure as annual Super Bowl contenders.
Even with the best record in football, the 49ers have beaten only two teams with winning records, the Minnesota Vikings twice, including Saturday, and Denver earlier.
No one–not the 49ers themselves, now one victory from a sixth Super Bowl–can yet be certain just how good or how ordinary this 49ers team is.
“I bet (Packers coach) Mike Holmgren was watching our game and making notes,” said Minnesota receiver Cris Carter, who had two touchdown catches. “The Packers can air it out, just like we do, and I think we showed that San Francisco is susceptible downfield.
“And even if it is Tampa Bay, they have weapons. They have great balance. They can run. They can pass. Anyone who can run and pass can beat the 49ers.”
The losers are not impressed. The winners are not impressed. The world is not impressed.
“We made a couple of mistakes,” 49ers coach Steve Mariucci said, “or the score would have been even bigger.”
Even if the Vikings were the worst wild-card team (“a very capable team,” in the words of Mariucci), winning should have settled more questions for San Francisco than it raised.
Here’s one. If a recycled relic like Randall Cunningham can pass for 331 yards and three touchdowns, what might Brett Favre do?
Here’s another. What are the chances of 49ers running back Terry Kirby having another game of his life, especially if anyone bothers to tackle him? Kirby cannot be considered even a journeyman–before his 120 yards against the Vikings, he had not run enough to consider the effort a journey.
“Definitely my best game ever,” Kirby said, as if he expected an argument.
And just one more question. Can the 49ers really rely on going five punts deep into the game before the opponent hits a punt for more than 30 yards?
“I don’t know exactly where we stand in comparison to other teams,” 49ers quarterback Steve Young said. “I don’t know where we are in comparison to other playoffs. Are we better? Are we worse? I don’t think we’re worse.”
The 49ers seem just as anxious to find out how good they are as the rest of us.
“What happened today is us,” Young said. “That was a nice display of who we are.”
A touchdown after a 12-yard punt. A touchdown by interception. A touchdown in which more than half the yards on the drive came from Minnesota penalties. If this is what the 49ers are, the 49ers are beneficiaries.
“I like where we are, which is at home and in the title game,” Young said. “But that’s not our final destination. We are kind of greedy, which is very good for us.”
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The 49ers have lost to Green Bay in the playoffs twice in the last two years, though Mariucci was not part of the defeats. In fact, the inability to beat the Packers may be the chief reason Mariucci is the 49ers’ coach and George Seifert is not.
While most of the 49ers coyly shrugged off a choice between the two Bays, Mariucci gave the strongest hint of which one the 49ers would like to play.
“We’ll have motivation with either opponent,” he said. “We would look forward to playing Tampa. But, well, Green Bay is Green Bay.
“Green Bay is a great team. They are champions. And it is our job to to dethrone them somehow.”
Used to be the other way around.