Josh Jacobs and Matt LaFleur can freeze the tundra at Lambeau Field once again

The knock on Aaron Rodgers playoff teams, especially at Lambeau Field, was an inability to play a style of football that fit the lore. That's changing.

On the very first play, the San Francisco 49ers had to know this game would be different. Jordan Love stood in a splitback set with Josh Jacobs to his right and receiver Jayden Reed to his left. Tucker Kraft went in motion and at the snap of the ball, Love pirouetted, faking a handoff to Reed before plunging the ball into Jacobs’ belly. The first-year Packer returned the favor in kind to the 49ers, gutting their defense for an 18-yard rip, a harbinger of things to come on a pleasant late-fall night in Green Bay. But when the weather takes a turn, like we expect on Thursday with temperatures in the low 20s at kickoff, the Packers will be ready.

The combination of losing Love early in the season and Brian Gutekunst’s inspired choice to add Malik Willis prepared the Packers for this moment. Maybe they could have arrived on their own. Their high-priced running back free agent turned the vaunted San Francisco defense into Swiss cheese (made in Wisconsin of course), setting a season-high around the NFL for missed tackles forced in a game. But he executed an offense partially inspired by the period of time Love missed back in September.

LaFleur brilliantly adjusted his run game on the fly, going back to high school single-wing concepts teams around the league have stolen. Meanwhile LaFleur has only added to his bag. He can run it with orbit motion, out of two running back personnel groups, or lighter bodies thanks to Reed’s playmaking as a runner. He can call power runs with a pulling guard, or dressed up split-flow zone runs that were already staple plays in this offense at their core.

Take the aforementioned first play of the game. It looks like a funky call with a receiver in the backfield and Kraft in pre-snap motion. He comes back across the field and it turns into regular old split-flow zone but there is hardly anything regular about it, at least for most teams.

But let’s get really weird. A few plays later, the Packers bring Chris Brooks onto the field and line him up wide before motioning him back into the backfield. Just before the snap, Love puts Jacobs in motion from a split gun look and they run a power lead play with Elgton Jenkins pulling and Brooks serving as the escort for Jacobs through the defense.