49ers Shanahan: November Win Holds 'Zero Relevance' To NFC Championship Game Rematch
SANTA CLARA (CBS SF) -- Green Bay head coach Matt LaFleur used his team's November thrashing at the hands of the San Francisco 49ers as a 'payback' rally cry in the Packers lockerroom after Sunday's win.
San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, meanwhile, plans to tell his players the 37-8 victory has little to do with Sunday's rematch in the NFC Championship Game at Levi's Stadium.
"We know it will be different," Shanahan told reporters Monday. "That game got away from them early. That's definitely not the team we are going to see this week. Everyone knows how good Green Bay is. How good their coaching staff is. How good their players are. How good their quarterback is. I don't think they have lost a game since then...That game holds zero relevance to what's going to happen Sunday."
"Don't be that stupid," Shanahan said of his advice if he does see any sign of a letdown this week in practice. "That's (the November result) not real. It's about Sunday's game. I can give (them) a thousand stories of things like that, playing in games that have been in my history."
"I remember losing to Carolina 37-0 when they were 13-0 and we (the Atlanta Falcons) had to play them two weeks later and then we beat them in Atlanta. There are so many stories like that and this is the NFL so the game before never matters like that. There are four teams left. Four very, very good teams."
He said he was not concerned about a let down because of the "kind of guys" he has in the lockerroom.
"They will have to answer that (question from the media) a lot, but I don't think that will be a worry for our players which means it won't be for me," he said.
Shanahan did say he did not expect Green Bay 'to re-invent the wheel' in the week leading up to the Sunday's showdown.
"They do what they do, we do what we do," he told reporters. "We all run our schemes and have our foundations to what we do. You can't re-invent the wheel in a certain week or you put your players in a bad position. Everyone is going to have some wrinkles. They are going to have wrinkles, we're going to have wrinkles. Lots of teams play each other twice in a year."
When it comes to stopping the Packers, wide receiver Davante Adams draws the most attention from opposing defenses. Adams caught 8 passes for 160 yards and two touchdowns in Sunday's win over Seattle. He had 7 catches for 43 yards and one touchdown in the November loss to the 49ers.
"He's very good at beating man coverage," Shanahan said of Packers quarterback Aaron Rogers main target. "One of those guys hard to cover because of their quickness, their feet, their size and their hands...They got a good quarterback who gets the ball to the right spot."