by David Zizmor

SANTA CLARA–The 49ers who pulled off a big win in the negative wind chill last Sunday in Green Bay made it a good game, it was an intense game for the 49ers and the 49ers who came out on top primarily due to a great performance from 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

Kaepernick who had success against the Packers during last season’s playoff set a running record at 180 yards not just a playoff record but an NFL record and he was just as good and just as effective and he’s a little bit better with his arm in this game.

While he had only 98 yards in this game he managed to scramble at the most important times in the game when it made the biggest difference, thats what changed the game in this case he made big plays with his feet and arm and led the Niners to victory. That put the 49ers in a position to get into the NFC Championship yet again if they can get past Carolina this Sunday.

As you remember the 49ers played Carolina at the beginning of November and the Panthers came into Candlestick and won 10-9 in one of the most physical games of the season. It was a real tough game for the 49ers. They couldn’t get into the end zone and the Carolina defense really stifled the 49ers offense and it was probably the worse game of Kaepernick’s career as a starter.

Kaepernick didn’t even get past the 100 yard mark in passing yardage and he didn’t do much better on the ground he only had 91 yards passing, threw an interception and threw no touchdowns. It was a bad day all around for the 49ers offense. Lets give credit to the 49ers defense, the 49ers defense did a great job in that game, they gave up ten points but ten points for the 49ers is usually more than enough to get a victory.

In this case it wasn’t, Kaepernick had a lousy game for the 49ers, but so did Panther quaterback Cam Newton. Kaepernick his numbers looked worse than Newton who wasn’t better he had just over 160 yards in the November contest. He didnt throw any touchdown passes, he had one interception and the Panthers scored on a 20 yard plus broken play run.

So for this game coming to Carolina this is going to be a another tight one, the defenses are just reallly good. Just pointing this out for the 49ers in November, Michael Crabtree was not back he was still recovering and Aldon Smtih was out those are two key players for the 49ers and that could be the difference and these are two guys who could have an impact on this game coming back.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for Sportstalk Radio