The Packers’ run defense rose to the occasion in their Week 12 win over San Francisco

The Green Bay Packers put the clamps on a San Francisco 49ers offense that has struggled recently to score points and pass and run effectively. The result: a 38-10 victory over a team that looked like a shell of its former self just past the midway point of the season.

San Francisco entered the game without a number of its star players on offense and defense, most of whom had just played a week earlier against Seattle in Week 11 but trickled onto the injury report throughout the week. And they look to be heading into the next several weeks with a backup starting at quarterback. (Update: Kyle Shanahan says Brock Purdy will start Sunday night in Buffalo but that “anything can happen between now and then,” whatever that means).

No excuse though. The Packers already went through this with Jordan Love missing a series of games and the Packers still managing to win. For the 49ers, their recent struggles are much larger than the quarterback position though. Purdy is one of the few players on offense that was playing really well too.

Their run game has struggled mostly all season and most notably, has struggled since week 6 with their run game efficiency declining in what used to be their bread-and-butter concepts. The lack of an effective run game has put enormous pressure on the passing game and puts them in too many third and long situations.

Per RBSDM, since Week 6, the 49ers are 16th in rushing success rate. Through the first five weeks of the season, they were 9th. Both of these metrics are in early down run rate, 1st and 2nd down in neutral game scripts.

Conversely, the Packers came into the game as the league’s 25th-ranked run defense in success rate by those same metrics above. There should have been no reason for the 49ers to not be somewhat successful running the ball.

Yet they weren’t, and they often found themselves in third and long on Sunday in Week 12. In Week 12, the 49ers faced an average of 3rd-and-7 to go (6.9) and only gained 3.3 yards per third down. They converted just 3-for-10 on third down.

The run game was a big reason why they could not get out of third and long, whether it was from lack of yards gained to make the conversion down a manageable one or because of bad penalties and mistakes, it was clear that the Packers defensive gameplan played a big role in this phase of the game, selling out to stop the run.

The Packers’ defense mixed in a variety of ways to bottle up the 49er’s run game and one way here was preventing second-level blocks in the 49ers’ outside zone scheme. The best way to do that is to pinch the interior gaps and interfere with blockers releasing to the second level.

The 49ers are running a wide zone concept from shotgun to their left here. The offense has a nub tight end formation here to the left and the Packers have five on the line of scrimmage with two defenders aligned outside the tight end. No matter what, the Packers do not want that run to get outside on the edge.

With defensive tackles T.J. Slaton and Kenny Clark aligned in the A-gaps and a defensive end in the B-gap, the Packers want to funnel the run to the run support in the middle of the defense. Both tackles pinch the A-gaps, preventing center Jake Brendel from effectively getting to the second level to block Quay Walker.

Defenders Carrington Valentine and Isaiah McDuffie both force the run back inside where Walker and Xavier McKinney can both fill the alley and fit inside to bottle up McCaffrey.

All game long, the Packers continued to beat 49ers blockers to the edge and were able to out-leverage from outside-in and force McCaffrey into the teeth.

Here, on a wide zone toss run to the left, the 49ers motioned an extra blocker over to the left, George Kittle, but again, the Packers were able to pinch gaps inside, allowing the second-level blockers to get downhill quicker before taking on blocks with outside leverage.

First, Kenny Clark holds the line against Brendel again. Left guard Aaron Banks is unable to take a good angle to McDuffie and McDuffie forces McCaffrey inside where he spins out of the block and makes the tackle with Clark.

If Banks stayed more parallel to the line of scrimmage, he would have been in a better blocking position to leverage the linebacker’s path. Instead, he’s unable to maintain his angle and the run goes nowhere.

Over the last 1.5 seasons, the 49ers have become more of a gap scheme running team with McCaffrey and have been extremely efficient at it. Per Sports Info Solutions, the 49ers were ranked 7th in EPA per rushing attempt in gap scheme runs in 2023.

In 2024, they’re ranked 19th in EPA per rushing attempt on gap scheme runs. Through eight weeks pre-McCaffrey, they ranked 31st in EPA per rushing attempt, becoming essentially a 1-dimensional running team relying on outside zone.

Typically, on gap scheme runs, the play-side linebackers will hammer either side of the 2nd puller into the hole. Here, Walker and McDuffie hammer both sides of tight end George Kittle and compress the point of attack by closing that gap and not allowing Juszczyk to make a block to lead for McCaffrey.

Typically, the 2nd lead blocker, Kyle Juszczyk, would lead up and block McDuffie but the linebackers already won their rep. To no one’s surprise, center Jake Brendel loses his block on Colby Wooden, who closes down the lane to McCaffrey

In the second clip, Brendel got walked back into McCaffrey’s path and was shoved down in front of the running back just as he was about to cut through to a crease behind Brendel had he been able to hold his block.

Throughout the course of the game, the 49ers found themselves out-leveraged time and time again versus 8-man boxes and unable to sustain their blocks.

Here, versus an 8-man front, McCaffrey can’t even adequately hit the cutback on this because left guard Aaron Banks was pushed into his path as he tried to plant and cut. Even if he had been able to, on the backside Colton McKivitz didn’t seal off the cutback defender in the second level, Quay Walker.

In the second clip, the 49ers are running another wide zone toss to the right. Here, Karl Brooks interferes with right guard Dominick Puni, slowing Puni down enough that he can’t adequately block Walker. Walker shoots outside Puni and makes the stop.

Outlook

The Packers had another potentially tough task in stopping the Dolphins’ run game on Thanksgiving night, a task they were up for, limiting the Dolphins’ explosive run game to 33 yards on 12 carries, making this two weeks in a row now that they have held explosive running games in check.

The Lions are next on the slate on Thursday Night Football, and they will surely put the Packers run defense to the test in what is shaping up to be a pivotal divisional battle.