The Green Bay Packers picked up a full-team win Sunday as they beat the banged-up San Francisco 49ers 38-10 on Salute to Service Day in the NFL.
The big men up front won the battles on both sides of the ball, with the offense picking up 169 yards on the ground, 106 of which came from Josh Jacobs, who also found the endzone three times.
Defensively, the Packers kept the explosive Christian McCaffrey in check, allowing a total of 44 yards on the ground.
The 49ers were led by Brandon Allen, who filled in for an injured Brock Purdy at quarterback.
He ended the day with 199 passing yards but also threw an interception that went through the hands of Debo Samuel and right into the waiting arms of Safety Xavier McKinney.
McKinney told SeehaferNews.com that he was fully prepared mentally for exactly that to happen.
“I noticed that they were dropping a lot of passed throughout the game,” he noted. “I kinda figured it’s probably going to get tipped right back to me. When I saw it, I said ‘I have got to capitalize on this one.’”
The Packers defense also forced three fumbles on the day and received two of them on back-to-back plays.
Defensive End Colby Wooden tells us that is something they worked on all week.
“The last couple of weeks we didn’t get the takeaways we wanted, so going into this week, that was a major emphasis,” he explained. “You know last week, Chicago beat us in the takeaways and they almost won.”
As far as stopping the run, Wooden said they didn’t really do anything out of the ordinary.
“We knew we had to stop the run,” he said. “Guys were just locked in to their assignment, their keys, you know playing fast. We were knocking them back at the point of attack which was important.”
Offensively, the big boys were imposing their will on the front line of the San Francisco defense, helping Josh Jacobs have a career-high three touchdown performance.
Center Josh Meyers attributed that to a good week of preparation.
“I think our game plan for starters was really good,” he said. “I thought we executed it really well. They moved a lot, we handled their movement well, we communicated well, and we were able to consistently move the ball.”
The Packers O-Line had a lot of misdirection and moving parts in their game plan this week, including a play where Meyers pulled to cover the right edge as a part of a pass protection, which he said was not something a center is usually asked to do.
“Stress,” He joked. “We have that 3 technique backside, and that’s just a long way to on a gap scheme play action for a center, so we switch it and have the center pull.”
Coach Matt LaFleur spoke highly of Tucker Kraft, who caught one Jordan Love’s two touchdown passes of the day and bulldozed over a couple of guys to find the endzone.
“Tuck’s a G,” he said with a smile. “He plays the right way with a great mentality. I think he is just scratching the surface personally. I think he continues to improve and gets better and better it seams like every week.”
Green Bay doesn’t have a lot of time to rest, as they are a part of a Thanksgiving Day triple header.
The Packers will host the Miami Dolphins as the closer of the day after the Chicago Bears travel to Detroit to take on the Lions at 11:30 a.m., and the Dallas Cowboys host the New York Giants at 3:30 p.m.
