Packers HoFer Mark Chmura Believs He Has the Winning Formula for Beating the Niners: Late Hits on Brock Purdy

Michael Zagaris. Getty Images.

When you have the youngest roster in the NFL at an average of just 25.0 years of age, finished the regular season at 9-8, have a first year starter at quarterback, and 9.5-point underdogs on the road against the 1-seed coming off their bye, it goes without saying that you face a steep, uphill climb. Such is the case with Green Bay as they head to San Francisco Saturday night.

And so it follows that Packers experts are going to have to get creative as they try to find a path to victory for their team. Something beyond the obvious cliches. Take care of the ball. Force turnovers. Control the clock. Establish the run. Stop the run, etc. All the lazy, conventional wisdom takes simply won't do when your team is facing a challenge of this magnitude. 

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Fortunately, the good people of Wisconsin have one of the great Packers of the last 30 years to show them the way. Team Hall of Fame tight end Mark Chmura has the secret sauce for beating the 49ers:

“A 15-yard penalty - and I don’t condone this, but I kinda do in the playoffs - a 15-yard penalty for a late hit on Brock Purdy is not a bad thing, as long as it’s worth it. Sometimes, a 15-yard penalty is worth it early in the game if you knock the living crap out of the guy. And then he - kind of like sticking your helmet in the ribs of Nick Bosa - is like, ‘Ahh! I’m hearing ghosts!!!'”

It's hard to argue with Chmura's logic, amirite? After all, he doesn't condone trying to take out a QB with a late hit. He just kinda does. Because it's the playoffs. And as long as it's worth the 15 yards, you take your shot. Make Brock Purdy hear ghosts. 

How else do you stop the presumptive league MVP? Sure, you could try to disrupt his timing with a mix of blitz packages. Pack the middle to take away his passing lanes. Disguise your man- and zone coverages, giving one look pre-snap then switching to the other once he's into his drop back. But that takes a lot of work, planning, practice, communication and coordinated effort. Why go through all that hassle when you can simply treat the whistle like a Boston stop sign: As a mere suggestion? One perfectly executed late hit when the Niners think the play is over, and it's time for the inventor of QB ghost encounters, Sam Darnold.

Chmura's strategy worked for Tonya Harding. It worked for the Charleston Chiefs:

There's no reason to think it can't work for Green Bay.

Granted, the suggestion is not going over well in San Francisco. Niners fans aren't passing up the opportunity to bring up Chmura's own very sketchy past:

ESPN, February 6th, 2001 - The foreman of the jury that acquitted Mark Chmura of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl said the football star is guilty of one thing: bad judgment.

"He put himself in a bad situation by being drunk with kids and in a hot tub in his underwear," foreman Brad Breidenstein, a 38-year-old bar manager from Janesville, said Sunday.

But the jury disagreed with District Attorney Paul Bucher's contention that Chmura went from frolicking around in wet boxers with drunken teen-agers to luring the girl into a bathroom and sexually assaulting her last April 9.

Chmura was acquitted Saturday night of charges of child enticement and sexual assault that carried up to 40 years in prison.

"None of us believed nothing happened. We all believed something happened in there," said a 59-year-old female juror who asked that her name not be used. "But we had no evidence to prove it." 

I guess it's just fair to say that "bad judgment" is just kind of Chmura's thing. Even all these years later. Once it was drunkenly creeping on underage females, now it's ordering a Code Red on Brock Purdy. The same sort of Code Red that would've made everyone in Packers nation freak the fuck out if it was recommended on Jordan Love, Aaron Rodgers or Brett Favre back when he was throwing passes to Chmura. But like he said, it's the playoffs. So anything goes, I guess.