Sacks Provide Exclamation Mark for Clark’s Season
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Mr. October is Reggie Jackson. Mr. November is Derek Jeter. Mr. December might be Kenny Clark.
The Green Bay Packers’ fourth-year defensive tackle had two sacks in Sunday’s win at Chicago. Of his 15.5 career sacks, eight have come in Decembers. He has 3.5 sacks the past two weeks.
Clark was at a loss to explain his penchant for throwing quarterbacks for a loss in December.
“I don’t know,” Clark said on Monday. “You’ve got to be playing your best football in December. I don’t know. I’m just trying to help the team win and make a big push.”
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Clark clearly will on the short list of contract extensions for general manager Brian Gutekunst. The only question is when; with Clark set to play the 2020 season under a fifth-year option, there isn’t an enormous amount of pressure to get anything done soon. Regardless, the 24-year-old is a building block for the playoff-bound Packers.
“It’s like I’ve been saying: He has been playing well,” defensive line coach Jerry Montgomery said on Monday. “He has a ton of pressures on the year but, when he was getting there, the ball was getting out. Now, he’s getting the opportunities to finish. I think he’s been playing well all year. Now, you’re seeing the sacks. When people see the sacks, it’s like, ‘OK.’ But if you look at his pressures on the year, the guy’s one of the top pressure guys inside in the league.”
Indeed he is. Among interior defenders – all 3-4 defensive linemen and 4-3 defensive tackles – Clark trails only the Rams’ indomitable Aaron Donald with 67 total pressures, according to Pro Football Focus. In PFF’s pass-rushing productivity, a metric that combines sacks, hits and hurries per pass-rushing snap, Clark is sixth among interior defenders with at least 200 pass rushes. He’s also 10th in PFF’s run-stop percentage, a metric that essentially measures impact tackles. Only Clark and Pittsburgh’s Cameron Heyward are in the top 10 in both metrics.
“Kenny’s been all over the place really being disruptive in both the run game and the pass game, so he’s been a major force,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur.
That was especially true against the Bears. Clark had eight tackles – three more than his previous season high. He made his presence on the second snap, when he swam past standout left guard James Daniels for a tackle for loss. On the first snap of Chicago’s second series, he went between right guard Rashaad Coward and right tackle Cornelius Lucas to limit a run to a 1-yard gain.
Some of his success was due in part to a new wrinkle. Defensive coordinator Mike Pettine continued to take advantage of outside linebacker Za’Darius Smith’s versatility by lining him at defensive tackle on some snaps and as a rover milling around just behind the defensive tackles on other snaps. Doing so did more than free up Clark from some double-team blocks on running plays. It also gave away Chicago’s protection schemes.
“I know Chicago slid to (Smith) every snap,” Montgomery said. “That’s hard for a guy like Z. He’s getting two, maybe three, guys at him. Now, Kenny’s getting the legit one-on-ones and we don’t have to know where the slide’s going. We know. He won some opportunities and there were some missed opportunities out there. He probably should have had another one or two on the day. Z is a presence to be dealt with – he has been all year – and he makes people around him better. Like Kenny does in the run game, a lot of people double him in the run game. In the pass game, people are looking to double Z and they’re chipping Preston (Smith). That leaves somebody else free. They must think he’s not a good rusher so, hey, he’ll take whatever he can get.”
On a second down on the second series, Smith stood up over center Cody Whitehair. That gave Smith a one-on-one with Whitehair, Clark a one-on-one with Coward and Preston Smith a one-on-one with Lucas. Clark won the race to the quarterback for his first sack.
“Z, he’s going to command a double team so it helped us out and gave us all one-on-ones,” Clark said. “It’s our job to win.”
On Sunday, Clark won early and often and perhaps earned a few more dollars for his next contract.
