The 49ers had a pair of what can best be described as "night and day" performances in their two playoff matchups thus far. Against both the Falcons and Packers, the 49ers defense struggled in the first half, giving up big performances to both Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan. Both quarterbacks put up some huge numbers, and the 49ers looked to be in for tough fights.
The Falcons ended up giving the 49ers a tougher fight than the Packers, but both games featured key adjustments by the 49ers defense in the second half. The 49ers gave up a combined 45 points in the two first halves of those games. In the combined second halves, the 49ers gave up 10 total points, all to the Packers.
Obviously some adjustments were made. We all have some general ideas about it, but I thought it would be good to take a video look at a few key plays. I was up in New York City on Wednesday to get some video together, along with Dylan DeSimone. Dylan took a look through NFL Rewind for both games and came up with some plays that exemplified the problems in the first half of each game, and then some things they improved on in the second half.
Normally I've done the videos on my own, but why not try a team effort on this topic? Thanks to Dylan for all his help, and what turned out to be a solid video. It's a little over five minutes, but we think it's worth your time. Let us know what you think both about our analysis and the general structure of the video. We can try and work on some more of these in the future if you guys like what you see.