A low block on Sunday from Packers tight end Tucker Kraft sent Vikings linebacker Pat Jones II out of the game with a knee injury. On Monday, Packers coach Matt LaFleur defended the maneuver.
Via Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com, LaFleur called it a “totally legal play.”
“It’s part of the game,” LaFleur told reporters. “So, if you don’t want to get those types of blocks, you can’t be so out of control. We get it too with our defensive ends. . . . 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.”
LaFleur added that the Vikings did it, too.
“[Bobby] Cox got sawed off by Johnny Mundt one time, and they got somebody else,” LaFleur said. “They did it to us twice in the game. What are we talking about?”
It became an issue because Vikings defensive end Jonathan Greenard said on social media that Kraft should “[b]e a man and block up high.”
Greenard also called for the NFL to abolish low blocks. Earlier this month, the league made it clear that it wants to take all low blocks out of the game.
Low blocks are legal in the tackle box. And the issue isn’t new. In a preseason game from 2022, then-Lions tight end T.J. Hockenson applied a low block to Steelers linebacker T.J. Watt. A few days earlier, it happened to Giants defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux in another preseason game.
“It’s not like — our intent is not to go hurt somebody,” LaFleur said. “You never want to see that. I don’t want to see that from either team. The intent is to slow somebody down, and I do think it’s part of our job as coaches, is to teach our, whether it’s an edge rusher or whoever, how to defeat a cut block. And conversely, you’ve got to teach them how to throw a good cut, you know? That’s part of our responsibility, and then the players have got to go out there and apply that.”
So, yes, until the league outlaws all low blocks, the block that injured Jones is legal. The good news for the Viking is that coach Kevin O’Connell said Monday that Jones has a chance to play on Sunday at Detroit.
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