By Morris Phillips

Close game, trailing late, tough environment?  Right now, nothing shakes the defending NFC champs.

The 49ers won their seventh straight on Sunday and conquered the Green Bay cold, beating the Packers 23-20 on Phil Dawson’s 33-yard field goal as time expired.  And leading the team to a Wild Card Round victory and to a date with the Carolina Panthers next Sunday in the Divisional Round?  The fleet of foot, strong-armed Colin Kaepernick, sleeveless with his tatted-up biceps there for all to see on a day where the game time temperature was 5 degrees with a wind chill of 10 below.

Must be that the challenging conditions bring out the best in the biggest competitors, or maybe the opportunity to one up perennial All-Pro Aaron Rodgers in his own winter wonderland of a backyard gets the juices flowing, right Colin?

“I’ve played in cold weather before,” Kaepernick said dismissively.

All afternoon the 49ers played confidently and smartly in worst conditions most of the team had ever seen.  The 49ers stopped the Packers cold into the second quarter, committed just two penalties and quickly overcame their only turnover—Kaepernick’s second quarter interception that led to Green Bay’s brief 7-6 lead.  When the 49ers trailed by four with 12 minutes remaining, they responded with a touchdown.  When the game was tied with five minutes remaining, they smartly moved the ball downfield, and capped the drive with Dawson’s game-winner with no time left for the Pack to respond.

And the confidence never wavered—even as their fans back home experienced a collective heart attack—obviously built on their NFL-best seven-game win streak and wins in 12 of their last 14, with the two losses to playoff teams by a combined four points.  And for the old hands like Patrick Willis, Frank Gore, Justin Smith, Joe Staley and others who remember how easily the Pack the dismissed the 49ers in December 2010 at Lambeau Field on their way to winning Super Bowl XLV, the current, three-game win streak over Green Bay felt good in the back pocket as well.  Staley summed up the team’s attitude down the stretch—similar to Kaepernick—with one care-free statement.

“Everyone was like, it’s kind of fun to win on the last drive of the game.  Let’s go do it,” Staley said.

The 49ers earned a date with the NFC South champion Panthers at Bank of America Stadium, while avoiding a trip—for now—to Seattle.  The game will be a rematch of one the season’s most physical battles, a 10-9 Carolina victory in Week 10 at Candlestick Park.

The win also kept alive the possibility that the 49ers could play one last game at Candlestick—if they can get by Carolina one day after the Saints upset the Seahawks in Seattle—and become the first-ever No. 5 seed to host a playoff game.

The 49ers got big performances from their entire team on Sunday, and that allowed them to wear down the hosts, who won four fewer games than the wild card 49ers during the regular season.  Michael Crabtree responded with his best game post-Achilles surgery with eight catches for 125 yards.  Vernon Davis was targeted seven times but made only two catches against frequent double-coverage, but his second grab went for 28 yards and a touchdown that gave the 49ers a 20-17 lead with 10:31 remaining.

Kaepernick passed for 227 yards, but once again, kept the Pack off balance with his running—seven carries for 98 yards with a long of 42 yards and a critical pump fake and scramble around left end for 11 yards that kept the chains moving on the 49ers’ game-winning drive.

On defense, the 49ers overcame the loss of starting corner Carlos Rogers by promoting Perrish Cox to nickel and starting Tarell Brown and Tremaine Brock on the outside.  Ironically, Cox was just resigned after being cut by the Seahawks, and when likely replacement Eric Wright came up iffy, he stepped in a played a whale of a game.

“Our guys have done this before,” Harbaugh said.  “We generated a lot of toughness.”

The Packers were led by Rodgers, who literally shook the rust from his broken collarbone series-by-series and almost pulled off a dramatic victory for Green Bay.  Rodgers completed 17 for 26 for 177 yards and no picks and got a big assist from rookie Eddie Lacy who provided 81 yards rushing on 21 carries.  Lacy was so good on Sunday getting the tough yards for the Pack, he could be listed as the single biggest factor in why this one was so close, in comparison to the three previous Green Bay losses to San Francisco that were at points quite lopsided.

I take my hat off to Green Bay, they played a great game but we played better,” Gore said.  “We made plays when we had to make them and we got the ‘W.’”

Harbaugh became the first coach since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 to win at least 13 games in each of his first three seasons as coach, with playoff victories included.   Harbaugh has also won both of his road playoff games, including last season’s NFC Championship victory in Atlanta.