The San Francisco 49ers comfortably won their third straight game to begin the regular season, defeating the New York Giants 30-12 to improve to 3-0.
However, for the second consecutive week, linebacker Dre Greenlaw committed a 15-yard penalty that cost the team, which was an issue at times last season due to the aggressiveness of his play.
Greenlaw enjoyed a breakout season in 2022 after signing a well-earned 2-year contract extension and cemented himself as the No. 2 linebacker next to Fred Warner.
But, after two straight weeks with 15-yard flags, are Greenlaw's penalties getting out of hand?
Head coach Kyle Shanahan provided his take on the matter, valuing Greenlaw's aggressiveness, while also pointing out the close nature of both plays that resulted in penalties.
"I love how Greenlaw plays and I think he plays as aggressive as you can usually without breaking any rules. And I think both of these, these last two weeks were as close as they could get. From what I've seen on this one, I thought it could have gone either way. I'm going to be curious to see their answer on that when we get that back from the league this week."
While there have been issues of stupid penalties in the past for the 49ers, Shanahan didn't feel that Greenlaw's fell under that boat in either week.
"I didn't think either of them were too bad, so it's nothing. Yeah, when guys cross the line and we're making real stupid penalties that's something that's always addressed. I feel we haven't had an issue with that. We've gone very few throughout these years. But those were two that I thought could have gone either way."
Greenlaw will look to clean those up when the 49ers host the Arizona Cardinals at Levi's Stadium, fresh off their Week 3 defeat of the Dallas Cowboys,.
- Rohan Chakravarthi
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Written by:Writer/Reporter for 49ers Webzone
