Brandon Jacobs is ready to take some helmet-to-helmet hits.
Jacobs said today that he’s hoping the 49ers will hit him in the head when the Giants visit San Francisco, because he thinks it’s a lot harder to take him down by hitting him high than to take him down by hitting him low.
“I wish like hell they’d hit me in the head,” Jacobs told NFL.com. “A helmet-to-helmet hit. I want one of those. Because that means they’re staying high, you know. They’re not going to the ground and trying to make tackles at the shoe strings.”
One player who may be willing to oblige is 49ers safety Donte Whitner, who knocked Saints running back Pierre Thomas out of Saturday’s playoff game with a helmet-to-helmet hit. The league office probably isn’t comfortable with players promoting helmet-to-helmet contact like that, but Whitner’s hit on Thomas was legal because Thomas was a ball carrier on the play. Helmet-to-helmet hits are only illegal on defenseless players.
For Jacobs, seeing a running back get knocked out against the 49ers last week isn’t changing his approach this week.
“I really don’t care how physical they are,” Jacobs said. “It’s going to be a football game. They’re a physical bunch; we’re a physical bunch. We’re going to be out there playing ball. I’m not afraid of them, I’m not afraid of anybody on their team, I’m not afraid of anybody in their organization. I’m ready to play football.”