Position Evaluation: Secondary

Cornerback is the position former Head Honcho Ted Thompson (or is he, but more on that later) worked on the most in his final years and the position that was the least improved and the main reason, in addition to Dom Capers, the Packers defense sucked for the last several seasons.

Cornerback has been a major disaster after the loss of Tramon Williams and Sam Shields, despite being filled by three high draft choices. Thompson began to rebuild the unit by drafting Damarious Randall and Quinten Rollins No. 1 and No 2 in 2015 and then Kevin King No. 2 (he was actually Thompson’s top draft pick when he traded out of the 1st round) last season. In addition, he drafted Demetri Goodson No. 6 in 2014.

The Great, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The Great

Aaron Rodgers:

What can you say about a player who almost single-handedly put this team on his shoulders, including Sunday with a 9-play, 75-yard drive in 62 seconds to beat the Cowboys in Dallas.

Rodgers: “I just focused on my breathing on the sidelines and try to calm myself and remind the guys about some little things. The first play of that 2-minute was a conversation we had coming out of halftime actually about the leverage and coverage style in that 55, 2-man coverage and what kind of route we thought we could get in that situation.”

The most amazing thing about the drive was it wasn’t supposed to be for the win, but only for the tie to send it into overtime.

Rodgers: “I was thinking touchdown. We had time. We had a time out. The key to a good 2-minute drive is the 1st play. You have to get some positive yards. We had a good concept front side and kind of alert backside, which actually set up the entire final sequence, hit Davante on a back shoulder to start the whole drive. That ultimately sets up the winning pass, because he’s playing high shoulder first play we go back shoulder. He’s playing lower shoulder on the last play. We go over the top with a high throw.”

Take Heed You Ted Thompson Supporters

The Packers predictably laid an egg before a national audience Sunday night against the Atlanta Falcons giving the general population a good look at the Green Bay Packers roster that the local kiss ass media doesn’t seem to see.

After the win over the punchless Seahawks the Packers jumped from No. 3 in the NFL Power Rankings to No. 1 (a spot I thought was a bit inflated because I felt the Seahawks weren’t that formidable of an opponent to justify a No. 1 ranking).

I Was Surprised and Very Pleased With the Defense

There were far more positives than negatives Sunday afternoon in the win over the Seattle Seahawks. The defense, for the most part, played very well and the offense played well enough, especially in the second half.

2017 Ted Thompson to 2015 Ted Thompson, "You blew it".

After Ted Thompson chose Washington cornerback Kevin King with the first pick of the second round and North Carolina safety Josh Jones in its second pick of the second round pick it's now evident that Ted Thompson's 2015 draft was a dismal failure.

Next Man Up Once Again

The hallmark of the 2016-17 Green Bay Packers has been next man up all season. On defense the cornerback and inside linebacker positions has been hit very hard with injuries and on offense it has been running back and wide receiver. And once again injuries have raised its ugly head with the loss of Jordy Nelson for the Cowboys game for sure and the season possibly.

The loss of Nelson could hurt more than the loss of Randall Cobb for the last 2 games of the regular season did. When Cobb went down with an ankle injury undrafted rookie free agent Geronimo Allison stepped in and did a great job with 4 catches out of 7 thrown for 66 yards against the Vikings and 4 catches out of 6 thrown for 91 yards and a TD against the Lions.

Last week against the Giants despite Nelson going down early Allison was only thrown the ball twice catching 1 for 8 yards. It didn't seem to matter that Nelson was on the sidelines last week with Davante Adams and Randall Cobb not missing a beat catching 13 of 19 passes for 241 yards and 4 TDs.

In addition tight end Jared Cook continued to be productive catching 5 of 9 passes for 48 yards and running back Ty Montgomery doing good work out of the backfield catching 3 of 4 for 41 yards.

The key to last week was the inability of the defense to plan for Nelson being out and that won't be the case this week for the Cowboys. Last year with Nelson out the entire season Adams wasn't up to the task of being the No. 1 receiver after he had begun to show signs at the end of the 2014 season as being a legitimate go-to man.

Who Will Run The Ball Against The Texans And Other Stuff

Since Eddie Lacy went down with an ankle injury in Week 6 quarterback Aaron Rodgers has been the Packers leading rusher. He has consistently gained yardage averaging 6.2 yards a carry and saved drives by making 20 first downs most on third down.

 

However, last week in the win over the Eagles Rodgers tweaked his hamstring, so his mobility will be restricted leaving the ground game up to the halfback James Starks, tailback/slot back Ty Montgomery, fullback Aaron Ripkowski and halfback Christine “A Boy Named Sue” Michael.

 

Starks is beginning to show signs of life with 41 yards on 17 carries against the Eagles for 2.8 yards a carry after beginning the season with the worst statistics of his career averaging just 1.8 yards. Starks had some good runs, but he needs to do more this week.

 

Defensive Thoughts

Damarious Randall Picking Off Superman

Let me start off saying the defense got some recognition this week when rookie cornerback Damarious Randall was named the NFL's Defensive Rookie of the Month for November.

The man with the Johnny Unitas hightops led all rookies with two interceptions on back-to-back pickings of Peyton Manning and Cam Newton. He leads the team with 12 pass breakups and recovered the onside kick in the first game against the Lions to give the Packers a chance to win the game. Sadly they didn't.

Buh BYE

The 'Reach' by Damarious Randall

The bye week couldn't come at a better time for many reasons, but as it refers to me, since everything revolves around me, I don't think I could watch a game this week after that disgraceful performance by the seemingly resurgent Packer defense against the Chargers Sunday afternoon.

 

Up front I will implore everyone to vote for cornerback Damarious Randall as Defensive Rookie of the Week. If he isn't nominated then write in his name.

 

The other good thing that came out of the Chargers game, except for the win, of course, is that the x-rays on wide receiver Ty Montgomery's ankle were negative although it looked like he would be lost for the season when he was carried off the field. It seems the good that came out of this game, besides the win, was something that might not be as bad as it could have be.

 

Now for the bad. Defensive coordinator Dom Capers brief bout of competence lasted all of two weeks in addition to three quarters against the Seahawks and two against the Chiefs.

MOCKINGJAY DRAFT

Everyone and their brother had mock drafts leading up to the big event, so I decided to do something a little different and conduct what I will call my Mockingjay Draft if I was general manager instead of Ted Thompson.

 

One caveat is once I change a pick everything after that changes - but, of course, all you Trekkers know about the ripple effect in the time line of changing something in the past, so we'll just forget that aspect of it - and I will chose from the remaining undrafted guys in each round if I change the pick.

 

Round 1-30: Thursday night I said I would have drafted defensive tackle Malcom Brown from Texas instead of free safety Damarious Randall. But upon further reflection I would take Clemson ILB Stephone Anthony, who went to the Saints with the next pick. Either pick would have been better than Randall, but I will go with need at that point.

 

Stephone Anthony

Mike Mayock said: "Anthony is a big inside linebacker; a prototype. I think his best football is ahead of him. He'll be a starting inside linebacker immediately. He blew it up at the combine. For a guy that big, he's highly athletic."

SECOND VERSE SAME AS THE FIRST

With only one returning player at inside linebacker and two defections to replace at cornerback General Manager Ted Thompson went heavy at safety with his first two draft picks.

 

After taking the top ranked safety Damarious Randall from Arizona State at No. 30 in the first round Thompson took another sip from the safety well by snagging fourth ranked Quinten Rollins from Miami of Ohio with the 62nd pick in the second round with the plan being to move both to cornerback.

 

Quentin Rollins

Both are similar in stature (5-11, 195) and in the NFL.com rankings Rollins was actually ranked six spots higher on the overall rankings list.

 

Rollins is an interesting prospect. He is almost a carbon copy of last year's No. 6 round draft pick cornerback Demetri Goodson from Baylor. Rollins has only one year of college football experience while Goodson had two after both started their collegiate careers as basketball players.

 

If everything goes to form Rollins might not see any action at corner like Goodson did last year. In fact, with both Randall and Rollins moving from safety to cornerback neither of Thompson's top two picks could have any impact at all next season.

YOU DID WHAT?

I was almost totally wrong in my prediction about the Packers' first round pick in the 2015 NFL Draft. Well, maybe not totally wrong now that I think about. There were two parts of my prediction and I will examine my performance in two parts.

 

Part 1: So here comes my prediction. If (Marcus) Peters drops Thompson takes him at No. 30 red flags withstanding. If he doesn't and (Jalen) Collins is still there then he trades down (hopefully no less than six spots) and tries to draft him there or takes either (Eric) Kendricks, (Denzel) Perryman or (Benardrick) McKinney.

 

No. 1: I was right Peters wasn't there (I'll take any victories at this point). No. 2: I was right Collins was still available. No. 3: I was wrong Thompson didn't trade down.

 

Part 2: I could be totally wrong and (Thompson) goes off the board and picks a wide receiver or he stays with the need position and picks a name out of left field.

 

I hit this one right on the nose. Thompson went off the board and stayed with the need position and picked a name out of left field.

 

FINAL TALLY: On Part 1 I was right two out of three technically, but totally wrong on the whole. On Part 2 I was totally right (more or less). Not bad score for being wrong.

 

Damarious Randall

Now, if you're still listening to anything I have to say, here's my thoughts on free safety (soon to be cornerback) Damarious Randall from Arizona State.

 

No. 1: He was rated either the top (by Mike Mayock) or the second (by NFL.com) safety on the board, but safety was not hot position commodity, so I think he could have been drafted in Round Two.