Packer Central

Tucker Kraft-Kerby Joseph Feud Highlights Packers-Lions Rivalry Game

Green Bay Packers tight end Tucker Kraft and Detroit Lions safety Kerby Joseph had plenty to say before and during Thursday night’s showdown.

Bill Huber

Green Bay Packers tight end Tucker Kraft (85) spikes the ball after catching a touchdown pass against the Detroit Lions.
Green Bay Packers tight end Tucker Kraft (85) spikes the ball after catching a touchdown pass against the Detroit Lions. / Lon Horwedel-Imagn Images
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DETROIT – Green Bay Packers tight end Tucker Kraft and Detroit Lions safety Kerby Joseph have added another layer to a budding NFL feud.

This week, Kraft praised Joseph as a player but not for how he plays, with his habit for going low injuring a few players during his brief career – Packers receiver Romeo Doubs in 2022 among them.

“He’s a good DB,” Kraft said this week. “I might not agree with some of the places he likes to lay contact. He’s taken some of my brothers out of the game and I think about that, too. I get my chance to get my hands on him playing football.”

As the teams headed to their locker rooms after pregame, Kraft and Joseph got into a jawing match instigated by Joseph.

“He was waiting for me to walk into the tunnel and he had some words for me,” Kraft said. “So, I just let him know. He’s not going to do anything to me. I don’t think he did. Yeah. I talked that shit early in the week and I stood on it. I didn’t mean for it to go the distance it went but when it did, I stood on that. That was a tough game. They’re a good team. We’ll see them again.”

Afterward, Joseph pretended not to know about Kraft.

“You talking about the mac and cheese Kraft? I don’t know who that boy is,” Joseph said with a smirk.

On the final play of the third quarter, Jordan Love connected with Kraft in the flat. Kraft turned upfield and Joseph did what he does – he went low at the knees. Kraft hurdled him and was clobbered by Jack Campbell and Terrion Arnold.

The crowd let out a collective, “Ooh!”

Kraft got up with style with a “kip up.”           

What was Kraft thinking in the moment?

“Get my ass up,” he said. “No matter how hard you get hit, it’s about how fast you get up. They can talk all the shit that they want. They can hit me as hard as they want but they’re not going to stop me from getting up. That’s what I want defenses to know. They can hit me as hard as they f***ing want to; I’m going to get up. I’m going to give juice, especially after making a play (for a) first down.”

Kraft finished the day with three catches for 41 yards and a touchdown. It wasn’t enough, though, as the Lions swept the season series and left the Packers relegated to wild-card mode.

The Lions were feeling good about themselves afterward.

“They try to be competitive, but you can tell they’re not competitive. We the real dawgs,” cornerback Amik Robertson said. “When we go out there, we hunting, we ain’t the hunted. I know the real them. Lot of pretenders.”

The drama started before the game, with coach Matt LaFleur getting into it with a fan.

“I’ve never been a part of something like that,” LaFleur said. “He was talking junk to our players, giving them the throat-slash sign. You’re trying to de-escalate it, and then he gets in my face.

“I thought it was pretty unsportsmanlike. I’ve never seen that. I’ve been on many fields, and usually they police that much better.  I thought it was an arrogant fan that wanted to get in a part of the action. I would like to see security or something step in there and get him out of there, because it’s, he shouldn’t be doing that.”

Lions coach Dan Campbell improved to 6-2 against LaFleur as his team has become the clear top dog in the division. Even with a defense that had been riddled by injuries, his team had enough to beat the Packers.

“This is sweet,” Campbell said. “I told the team, ‘This will be one of those you never forget.’ I was telling (Jared) Goff pregame, I said, ‘Man, you’ve played all these games, you’ve had this long career,’ and I’m sure there’s some he probably – you don’t remember everything when you’ve played as long as he has, but I said, ‘You will never forget this one. You will never forget this game.’

“I think a lot of it is just what we’ve had to overcome, the hand we were dealt, and I just love the fact our guys don’t make excuses, they just find a way. Everybody on this team believed we were going to win that game, and we were going to find a way, and we just, we did it again. We did it again. Guys did it.”

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.