For about three and a half quarters, the Green Bay Packers defense kept Brock Purdy and the 49ers offense in check. That success started with the play of the defensive front.
“I feel like we did that pretty much the whole game,” said Kenny Clark on keeping Purdy and the offense in check. “The last six minutes of the game, I don’t know what happened but it’s tough. It’s tough. I feel like for a majority of the game, we definitely played a really good defensive game. Gave up some explosives but for the most part I feel we definitely played a solid game.”
Pressuring Purdy was a must for the Packers’ defense. Although relatively speaking, Purdy entered the postseason as one the most efficient quarterbacks when under pressure, ranking second in completion rate and yards per pass attempt, allowing him to regularly throw from a clean pocket where he completed 76 percent of his throws this season would have likely spelled disaster for the Packers defense.
According to PFF, the Packers pressured Purdy on 42 percent of his dropbacks. For some context, Justin Fields was the most pressured quarterback in football this season at 48 percent. When under duress, Purdy would complete just 7-of-16 passes but did showcase that efficiency in throwing for 102 yards.
The Packers would pressure Purday 23 times but managed to generate just one sack and four quarterback hits. However, what the Packers were consistently able to do was collapse the pocket, forcing Purdy to make throws with defenders close by and in his face, which disrupted his timing and rhythm, leading to some inaccurate and errant throws.
“We were playing great coverages and getting some good rushes on him that was applying pressure,” said Preston Smith after the game, “not allowing him to get into a rhythm, like he’s known for doing.”
With Christian McCaffrey at running back and a Niners’ offense that is excellent at picking up yards after the catch, the Packers had a sound game plan in place, which included having the linebackers closer to the line of scrimmage, muddying things up over the middle, and throwing some different looks at Purday. This, along with the pressure, helped disrupt the passing game.
“We expected to go out there and kind of muddy it up for him,” said Jonathan Owens, “keep him guessing, pressure on him. That’s what we went out and did. It’s just all a part of the game plan.”
Helping the Packers’ ability to get after Purdy was that the 49ers felt the need to throw the ball often, with Purdy having 39 pass attempts. This is, in part, a credit to the Packers’ offense for slowing the game down, limiting the number of possessions, and also giving the defense a lead to play with for much of the second half.
All of this helped keep the ball out of Christian McCaffrey’s hands and didn’t allow him to dominate the game as he often does, and several other opposing running backs have done against Green Bay. While McCaffrey would finish with 98 yards at 5.7 yards per attempt, for 17 of his 18 rush attempts, he averaged just 3.6 yards per carry.
Over the last month-plus, the Packers have held up quite well against the run and been much more consistent at generating pressure. A lot of that success started with the play of the interior defensive line.
Kenny Clark has been extremely disruptive, while we’ve seen much more steady play from the young players around him. Although not to the same degree as tight end and receiver, the interior defensive line room was a fairly inexperienced group as well. All of that resulted in regular push up the middle by the Packers, and whether it be the run or the pass, that is always the best way to wreck any play.
“I just think guys are getting better,” said Clark after the win over Chicago. “We got two rookies, TJ’s in this third, D-Wy in his second year. All young guys that are going to continue to get better and they’ve been getting better each and every week.
“You got these guys that got a hell of an ability. TJ can stop the run with the best of them. D-Wy (Devonte Wyatt), Colby (Wooden), and KB (Karl Brooks), those guys can rush and rush they asses off and explosive in the run game and be disruptive. You’ve got a good combination of guys and when you put that work in the only thing you can do is get better.”
With all of that said, it certainly wasn’t a flawless performance by the Packers by any means, and ultimately, the defense couldn’t get that last stop in the final minutes.
On top of that, Darnell Savage and Keisean Nixon both failed to capitalize on interception opportunities. There were quite a few missed tackles leading to chunk plays, and Anthony Johnson appeared out of position on the touchdown pass to George Kittle.
However, to a degree, some of that should have been expected. The 49ers had a top offense this season, and historically, by DVOA, they were one of the most efficient units ever.
At the end of the day, a loss is a loss, and the performance by this Packers team wasn’t good enough. Moral victories don’t exist in the playoffs.
There were too many missed opportunities to overcome in all phases. While that is absolutely true, and can’t be overstated, it’s also true that they dynamic 49ers’ offense was spinning its tires most of the night, and that began with the play of the Packers defensive front.
“I think we played great,” added Clark. “We (gave up) some explosives, a couple explosives but I think for the most part we had a really good game plan defensively, bottling them up a majority of the game. They got a couple runs on us and that last – two-minute or whatever it was, six minutes, we definitely gotta get off the field and just didn’t execute.”