49ers still have `thing' for Packers

It was the obvious question, and Tim McDonald gave what seems to be the obvious answer. The San Francisco 49ers are squat for their past five against the Green Bay Packers, so what's the grand truth to be gleaned?

"That we'd better not lose six in a row," he said with a helpless smile.In other words, he is raising the bar yet again before this nagging problem the 49ers have with the Packers officially becomes, in Steve Young's words, "a thing." As though five in a row is not a trend worth worrying about. Which, of course, it is.

Sunday's 36-22 beating, though, seemed somehow different than the other four - somehow not as comprehensive or explanatory of the way things are in the NFC. Yes, the result was pretty clear, and yes the 49ers' trouble spots (pass defense and pass protection) were as troublesome and spotty as ever, and they even can be found guilty of blowing their own comeback. And yes, there are still those nagging whispers that the 49ers have gone a long time without beating a team of consequence in a meaningful game.

In other words, there are lots of reasons to think the 49ers have betrayed themselves as a game but obvious runner-up yet again.

That, though, depends largely on how you feel about the Packers' own Super Bowl chances. And Minnesota's, for that matter. Indeed, unlike the other four losses to Green Bay, which made the Packers the best team in the NFC by definition, this one only helped muddy the waters for the second half of the season.

Minnesota lost at Tampa, thereby stripping the Vikings of their air of dazzling intrigue. The Packers beat the 49ers with convincing numbers and ancillary bruising. Atlanta, strangely enough, won again. The conference is not better defined by the events of the weekend but more obscured. In such a case, it might well be that even if the 49ers really cannot beat the Packers, there is no guarantee that they will face them in the postseason anyway.

Normally, you like your cataclysmic defeats to explain much more. Instead, this one pointed out the 49ers' recurring flaws, and displayed a new one, rather than elevated the Packers to untouchability.

The problems with the secondary remain obvious, even in the absence of team scapegoat Antonio Langham. The Packers scored three times on one-play drives, twice on cornerback Marquez Pope's side of the field - once, on Antonio Freeman's 80-yard catch on the game's first play, when the zone help behind him didn't materialize, and a second, Robert Brooks' 30-yarder, when his touchy back restricted his motion.