Cullen Jenkins injury a 'concern' for Green Bay Packers
The Packers might have lost defensive end Cullen Jenkins for at least a week and perhaps longer just when he appeared to be back to playing his best football.
Jenkins had two sacks Sunday that gave him a career-high seven for the season, but he re-injured his calf in late in the game. Hes already missed one game because of the injury, the Packers win over Minnesota on Oct. 24, when he sustained the injury in warm-ups.
Jenkins was badly limping when he left the field Sunday and was unavailable for comment after the game.
You really dont know until (Monday), coach Mike McCarthy said of the severity of the injury. Anytime you have a strain, particularly of a muscle its the same one that hes strained in the past, so thats the concern there.
The Packers had two other injuries of note Sunday, knee sprains to fullback Korey Hall and receiver Brett Swain. McCarthy gave no indication of the severity of the injuries.
Four-man front
Dom Capers, the Packers defensive coordinator, normally runs his base 3-4 defense on early downs against an opponents run-oriented personnel, but against San Francisco he occasionally used a four-man defensive line instead.
The group usually consisted of ends Jenkins and Ryan Pickett, and tackles B.J. Raji and Howard Green. However, it wasnt a standard 4-3 defense, because the extra defensive lineman replaced safety Charlie Peprah, giving the Packers four linemen, four linebackers and three defensive backs.
Capers came out in that alignment on the games first play, and the 49ers attempted a bomb to receiver Michael Crabtree that was overthrown. He used it on about six snaps total. The 49ers had incompletions on two of them, rushed for three yards on two others combined, then had runs of 17 yards and five yards by halfback Anthony Dixon.
Capers went to the four-man front because the 49ers last week against Arizona rushed for 261 yards, and on 21 plays used a two tight-end, two running back personnel set.
Arizona had a really hard time with it (last week), Capers said, and we saw quite a bit of (two tight ends and two backs) out of the Falcons the week before, 14, 15 snaps there, so I figured (the 49ers) had a lot of good stuff to look at with the Falcons stuff against us. So we started the game in that, and you saw them throw the ball deep on us on the first play. We anticipated that, they saw us trot big people out there and three DBs on the field that they were going to try to take shots up the field.
I didnt feel at any time we were really struggling stopping the run. They got a couple runs on us to their two tight end side but not like watching them last week against Arizona, because it was six, seven yards a crack and theyd break a 15, 20 yarder out of there too.