49ers newcomer Leonard Floyd warns Aaron Rodgers ‘will embarrass you’
SANTA CLARA – Aaron Rodgers got sacked twice by Nick Bosa in his final Green Bay Packers playoff game, that coming amid a snow-capped Lambeau Field in the 49ers’ divisional-round upset in January 2022.
A year ago, Rodgers got sacked by Leonard Floyd to not only ruin Rodgers’ New York Jets debut but end his season. Rodgers sustained a torn Achilles tendon.
“It was just a regular football play for me, a regular sack on the quarterback,” Floyd recalled Thursday. “He just happened to get hurt.”
Floyd came to the 49ers to pair up with Bosa as the 49ers’ premier pass rushers, and Rodgers is the first quarterback they’ll face together, come the regular-season opener at Levi’s Stadium on Monday, Sept. 9.
Floyd turns 32 a day earlier, so he’s been around long enough to not only experience that prime-time spotlight, but even do so in pursuit of Rodgers.
“I’ve done played a lot of football. In Chicago, sometimes we’d have Aaron as a first game,” said Floyd, a 2016 Bears’ first-round pick who indeed faced the Packers to open both the 2018 and ’19 seasons in prime time.
“Shoot, man, my scouting report is he’s a legendary quarterback and you have to come with your ‘A’ game, because he’s the type where he’ll embarrass you,” Floyd added. “If you give him some momentum, he’s going to carry that momentum for the whole game. You just have to be on your Ps and Qs, because he’ll score every time if you let him.”
Rogers was 0-4 against the 49ers in playoff action for Green Bay, with a 6-3 regular-season record that includes wins in his 2020 and ’21 visits to Levi’s Stadium.
The 49ers, for as much as their highly paid offensive stars generate attention, are still insistent that their defensive front dictates games. That means Floyd and Bosa – plus interior linemen Javon Hargrave, Maliek Collins, and Jordan Elliott — must get after Rodgers to spoil another of his and the Jets’ Monday night debuts.
When a reporter asked Bosa in camp about Floyd (6-foot-3, 240 pounds) being a leaner pass rusher, Bosa came to his new teammate’s defense. “Have you seen him up close? He’s pretty built,” Bosa said. “He’s 245, shredded, probably like 5% body fat and can run.
“He’ll be just fine in the scheme and he’s proved that he can rush the passer so it’s good to have him.”
With No. 3 defensive end Yetur Gross-Matos having suffered a more severe knee injury than Floyd in the preseason finale, the 49ers could lean even more so on Bosa, who, a year ago, was coming off a training camp holdout and signed a top-end contract days just before the opener at Pittsburgh.
“Bosa is Bosa. He’s going to come in and ball out,” cornerback Charvarius Ward said. “Obviously missing training camp (last year) was probably rough on him, because he was rough around the edges a little bit. But I think he’ll be himself this year and everybody is going to see the best Bosa they’ve ever seen, hopefully.”
Nick Sorensen, the 49ers’ new defensive coordinator after two years as an assistant, described Bosa as having a great camp that went according to the sixth-year veteran’s strict plan. “I expect that he’ll have a good year and I think he’s in really good shape too,” Sorensen said. “He’s in a good mindset and state of mind as far as how he’s attacking it and his attitude.”
Arguably the best game Bosa played, or at least one of his most memorable, was his first ‘Monday Night Football’ affair. That was an October 2019 home rout of Cleveland and Baker Mayfield, with Bosa accruing two sacks, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery.
“Nick is a great guy, a great pro,” Floyd said. “He’s all about the team, all about winning, and making sure we have that as a common goal.”
To that end, Floyd and Bosa often compare notes and discuss pass-rushing techniques during defensive warmups at practice. “We definitely do,” Floyd said, “because we’re both trying to get to the quarterback as much as possible.”
One time was enough for Floyd — and Rodgers — a year ago for the Monday night audience.
“I didn’t really have a view. I was just celebrating my sack,” Floyd said. “I didn’t know about it until the other quarterback just kept playing.”
Rather than keep rehashing that play and inciting Rodgers’ rage, Floyd scurried away from reporters in the locker room, saying: “We’ve got to still play. I can’t jinx it.”