Kay Adams, the host of FanDuel TV’s “Up and Adams,” had Virginia QB1 alum Kurt Benkert on her show this week to discuss the Green Bay-San Francisco NFC divisional-round playoff game.
Referring, jokingly, to the game as the “Benkert Bowl” – Benkert was on the practice squads for both teams, the Packers in 2021, the Niners in 2022 – Adams put Benkert on the spot on who he has going into Saturday’s game.
“I think the Packers have the advantage right now, and (Green Bay coach Matt) LaFleur, mainly because they have no pressure,” Benkert said.
The 49ers (12-5), the #1 seed in the NFC, are a 9.5-point favorite over the Pack (10-8), which blew out the NFC’s #2 seed, the Dallas Cowboys, 48-32, in the shocker of the wild-card weekend.
The win was the eighth in 11 games for Green Bay, which started the season 2-5 behind first-year starter Jordan Love, who grew into the role as the season wore on, and finished with solid counting numbers – 4,132 yards passing, 32 TDs, 11 INTs, 64.2 percent completion rate and a 96.1 passer rating, which ranked 11th in the league.
And as big ‘dogs, again, on the road, Green Bay has nothing to lose, to use the sports cliché.
“If you had asked me which position I’d rather be in right now, I’d 1,000 percent rather be on the Packers’ side than the 49ers’ side with, like, expectations and pressure,” Benkert said.
Benkert transferred in from East Carolina to play for Bronco Mendenhall when Mendenhall got the job at Virginia in 2015, and in two seasons, KB passed for 5,817 yards and 46 TDs, and led UVA to a bowl game in 2017, the first bowl appearance for the program in six years.
Benkert launched a twice-weekly podcast, “Pocket Presence,” in which he covers the NFL, fantasy football and DFS, in November.
His thinking on Pack-Niners: “The way that the Packers play football right now, with the time of possession, I mean, last week, they went, requested to get the kickoff first, went down and scored seven, so the pressure was never on them, and they played up pretty much the entire game. And I just think that’s going to be the same approach this week,” Benkert said.
“They’re going to try to control the clock, and as soon as like if the Packers can get any bit of a lead, the 49ers have to kind of ditch the game plan slightly, because they’re not a play-from-behind team. And so, if I’m in LaFleur’s head, all I’m thinking is, how can we jump out to a lead early and make them uncomfortable?” Benkert said.
Share
Chris Graham
