With the 3rd preseason game traditionally used as a dress rehersal for the starters, most of the rookies took a backseat.  A couple were still able to make a statement while other benefited from injuries ahead of them to potentially lock up a spot on the roster.  

Round 1: Kenny Clark (Grade: N/A, Overall: C) – Kenny Clark was held out of the game due to a back injury

Round 2: Jason Spriggs (Grade: C, Overall: B-) – After a pretty disastrous showing against Khalil Mack, Spriggs hurt his right hand and played most of the game with a giant club.  While naturally he wasn’t very good with his punch and often times lunged at defenders out of desperation, I still think he did some good things.  His footwork and mobility really help him direct rushers away from the quarterback and his kick slide seemed a little more natural.  His run blocking was still pretty weak, but I’m sure missing a hand made life harder.  Overall, he wasn’t spectacular but still improved after his game against the Raiders

Round 3: Kyler Fackrell (Grade: B-, Overall: B-) – Fackrell presumably might be the furthest back from seeing time in a regular season game; basically every other rookie saw playing time with the second team at worse outside of Fackrell.  I do get the feeling however, it’s not because the Packers are unhappy with his development, in fact Fackrell makes a couple good plays in every game, albeit against bottom of the roster types.  Against SF, Fackrell managed to nab a half sack and almost got another and pressured one more passing play.  Fackrell probably needs to get a little bit stronger as he’s only a speed and bend rusher and definitely needs a wide variety of pass rushing moves. 

Round 4: Blake Martinez (Grade: B-, Overall: B-) – Martinez has been treated like a starter since training camp and as such the 3^rd preseason game was his biggest amount of snaps to date.  Martinez showed good lateral speed and chasing ability but was rather pedestrian when rushing up against the middle.  Overall, it looks like Martinez will be a big part of the defense, presumably a starter and maybe even the main play caller for the defense. 

Round 4: Dean Lowry (Grade: C, Overall: B+) – Lowry has definitely been the surprise of the rookie draft class but he came back down to earth a little against the 49ers.  While he wasn’t horrible he did not stand out like he did in the last two games.  His rushes seemed to get stonewalled a little more often than before and he had a bigger issue slipping his blocks than before as well.  Still he showed great hustle in pushing a running back out of bounds on a toss play and got two good bull rushes off and generated pressure. 

Round 5: Trevor Davis (Grade C, Overall: D-) – Davis surprising played with Aaron Rodgers in the first half but from my count he’s probably the 5^th or 6^th wide receiver, with Jared Abberderis definitely ahead of him.  His routes are still pretty rounded and he really lacks great cutting ability.  Davis did make one great catch from Aaron Rodgers on a come back route but outside of that he was pretty much the same as before.

Round 6: Kyle Murphy (Grade: F, Overall: D+) – Murphy did a good job against Bruce Irvin last week but he laid an egg against “a bunch of guys named Dave” on the 49ers bench.  Murphy gave up a sack on a spin move, another on a DB blitz and almost gave up a third.  I’m not sure if it was something different this game, but Murpy’s kick slide was incredibly awkward and mechanical and he definitely was a liability in pass blocking.  He fared much better with the run but when you are potentially going to be blocking for Aaron Rodgers, you need to be a lot better.