Early in the second quarter of Sunday’s loss to the Vikings, Packers tight end Tucker Kraft lowered his right shoulder to the right leg of Vikings edge rusher Pat Jones II to clear space for running back Josh Jacobs.
Jones suffered a knee injury on the play and didn’t return to the game. Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said Monday that Jones has a chance to play Sunday night against the Lions.
The play was met with resounding boos from the crowd at U.S. Bank Stadium. After the game, Vikings edge rusher Jonathan Greenard told Kraft in a post on X to “Be a man block up high.”
Dude motioned from 30 yards away to STILL cut him. Pathetic. Be a man block up high. @NFL get rid of this block PLEASE. https://t.co/x6XP1Us9ji
— Jonathan Greenard (@jongreenard7) December 30, 2024
Packers head coach Matt LaFleur sounded off Monday when asked about Kraft’s block.
“It’s the same thing that their guys were doing to our defensive ends, OK?” LaFleur began. “It’s a cross-sift. It’s a totally legal play. You’ve got to defeat the block, and there’s a lot of different ways to do it. Cox (Packers defensive end Brenton Cox Jr.) got sawed off by (Vikings tight end) Johnny Mundt one time and they got somebody else. They did it to us twice in the game. What are we talking about? I get it. As a defensive player, they don’t like it. I think Troy’s (NFL executive VP of football operations Troy Vincent) already come out and said that he wants to eliminate low blocks around the league. But that is — it’s part of the game. So if you don’t want to get those types of blocks, you can’t be so out of control.”
Kraft was not flagged for the block, which helped clear the way for a 5-yard Jacobs run on first-and-10 from Minnesota’s 48-yard line.
“We get it too with our defensive ends,” LaFleur continued. “If we’re flying off the ball, you’re going to get cross-sift(ed). That’s a way to try to slow down just the speed off the edge. It’s a great equalizer. That’s tough for an offense to have to deal with that, so you’ve got to have some sort of recourse to try to slow somebody down. Otherwise, you’re going to put everybody at risk — your quarterbacks, guys are just going to tee off. We’ll see what happens in the future, but it’s no different than, what are we talking about, like low tackles. You see that around the league all the time. Then we should eliminate all low hits below the knee, period. When receivers catch a ball and they’re going across the middle and a safety who I won’t name goes and saws their legs out, that happens. We should get rid of all that then if that’s the case.”
It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out who LaFleur is referring to when he says, “safety who I won’t name.” That would be the Lions’ Kerby Joseph, who has drawn criticism for his injury-inducing hits on Rams tight end Tyler Higbee and Vikings tight end T.J. Hockenson in the past.
LIVE: Head Coach Matt LaFleur meets with the media 🎙️ https://t.co/M0sHYMXxBq
— Green Bay Packers (@packers) December 30, 2024
Ironically enough, Kraft called out Joseph earlier in the season ahead of Green Bay’s Week 14 trip to Detroit for exactly that.
“I might not agree with some of the places he likes to lay contact,” Kraft said after complimenting Joseph. “He’s taken some of my brothers out of the game and I think about that, too. I get my chance to get my hands on him playing football.”
Now it’s Kraft taking heat from an opponent on where he laid contact, but LaFleur was quick to his second-year tight end’s defense.
The Packers’ 27-25 loss to the Vikings and the Commanders’ overtime win against the Falcons in Week 17 mean Green Bay no longer controls its destiny for the No. 6 seed. If the Commanders beat the Cowboys in Week 18 or if both the Commanders and Packers (host the Bears) lose, Green Bay visits Philadelphia in the first round as the No. 7 seed. The only way the Packers jump back to No. 6 is if they beat the Bears and the Commanders lose to former longtime Packers coach Mike McCarthy and Dallas.
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(Photo: Brace Hemmelgarn / Getty Images)
