INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Tucker Kraft lives by one motto when it comes to what he does with the football in his hands.
“Don’t let a DB tackle me in space,” the Green Bay Packers‘ second-year tight end said.
That’s exactly what he did on his 66-yard, catch-and-run touchdown — the first of two touchdowns for Kraft in Sunday’s 24-19 win over the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium.
Kraft caught the ball just past the midfield stripe, and on his way to the end zone, he encountered two members of the Rams’ secondary.
Cornerback Darious Williams, meet Kraft’s stiff-arm.
Safety Quentin Lake, you’re about to be brushed aside.
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Tucker Kraft rumbles down the sideline for a 66-yard TD
Tucker Kraft flies down the sideline and stiff-arms a defender en route to a Packers touchdown.
Defensive backs, you have been officially warned. If they didn’t know the words that Kraft lives by before, they know it now.
“Sometimes that still happens, but [I’m] always trying to make the first one miss,” Kraft said. “But head down, bull in a china shop. That’s just what I do.”
On a day when two of their starting receivers were out — Christian Watson because of a left ankle injury and Romeo Doubs because of a one-game suspension for conduct detrimental to the team — the Packers may have just let the rest of the NFL in on their little secret.
“You saw a little something last year, especially towards the end,” Packers cornerback Eric Stokes said of Kraft. “Now, he just fully took over to where it’s like, the way Tucker plays, the way Tucker practices, it just shows up. So it ain’t no surprise with some of the things that he’s doing.”
On Sunday, Kraft caught four passes for 88 yards and two touchdowns. His second score put the Packers ahead 24-13 with 3:35 left in the game, as Kraft rumbled 7 yards on a screen. He ran through linebacker Troy Reeder on his way to the end zone.
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Tucker Kraft finds the end zone again for a Packers TD
Tucker Kraft dives across the goal line to extend the Packers’ lead over the Rams.
“Every time he touches the ball, he has that mindset that he’s trying to score,” Packers quarterback Jordan Love said. “He’s not going to go down lightly. He’s going to run people over and stay up. He does really good things when he has the ball in his hands. I definitely keep trying to find ways to give him the ball. He’s a dawg. He had a big-time performance today.”
Kraft entered the game with three career touchdowns, and he left it as the first Packers tight end with a multi-touchdown game since Robert Tonyan‘s three scores in Week 4 of 2020 against the Falcons.
Not bad for a guy who on most preseason depth charts was listed as TE2 behind Luke Musgrave. Even before Musgrave’s ankle injury from last week left him available only in emergency use against the Rams, Kraft had passed him by despite missing most of the offseason because of a torn pectoral muscle.
And not bad for a third-round pick who was viewed as a developmental player coming out of South Dakota State and had played nine-man football in high school in rural Timber Lake, South Dakota. It apparently didn’t take Kraft long to develop.
“I mean, the guy, he loves ball,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said. “He works. Nonstop. He’s relentless. And he’s got a great mindset. That’s all he does. He shows up, he works, he gets better. It’s been really cool to see him blossom. I think the more confidence he has gotten, the better he has done.”
While Kraft’s 16 catches do not crack the top-10 among tight ends this season, his 218 receiving yards rank fifth among all tight ends, and his yards-per-catch average of 13.6 is No. 1 with most of Week 5 in the books.
“I watch him every day, and he continues to make plays — the plays that I know he can make,” Packers receiver Jayden Reed said. “Everybody knows he’s capable of making those plays. Everybody knows Tuck.”
And they know what happens when he gets the ball in space.
“I kind of make my own open-field situations most of the time,” Kraft said. “Just make the first one miss.”
