This weekend, the San Francisco 49ers will play the Green Bay Packers in the divisional round for the second time in three years. Last time around, the Niners upset the Packers at Lambeau Field. Things were a bit different at that time, with Jimmy Garoppolo under center for San Francisco and Aaron Rodgers back there for Green Bay.
On Saturday, it’ll be Brock Purdy against Jordan Love. And there’s at least one person out there who thinks he knows the difference between the two Packers signal-callers: star 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa.
Love is “a quarterback who does exactly what he’s coached to do,” Bosa said, per KNBR. “Aaron Rodgers is a Hall of Famer and unbelievable, but he kinda went outside of the realm of coaching. And sometimes it’s good when you have a guy who does what he’s coached to do.”
As for how to defend a player like that, Bosa has an idea. Love is “really good at going through his reads and playing the offense to a T,” Bosa said, according to SI.com. “We definitely need to stop the run. I don’t think many teams have made him uncomfortable yet, so stopping the run and covering up those easy, open guys is something we have to do.”
The Cowboys certainly did not make Love uncomfortable at all last weekend, with the quarterback completing 16 of 21 passes for 272 yards and three touchdowns. Dallas pressured him just once Sunday, despite employing one of the best pass rushes in the NFL during the regular season.
Not being able to stop the run at all didn’t help them: Aaron Jones rushed 21 times for 118 yards and three scores, and Love went 6 of 8 for 107 yards and two touchdowns on play-action passes. The Niners will need to do a better job of keeping Jones from ripping off chunk gains, and of getting pressure on Love in the pocket to force him into mistakes.
