Secondary depth looking first rate
Gutekunst continues to hit on critical group
GREEN BAY - Every good NFL general manager has a sweet spot when it comes to identifying players.
Ron Wolf consistently hit on quarterbacks and offensive linemen. Ted Thompson was at his best with wide receivers.
Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst has been good just about everywhere in his short two years of running the personnel department, but the one area where he has done what no one else could since Wolf in the mid-1990s is build a secondary with talent, experience and longterm potential.
The defensive back position — except for a free-agent signing here (Charles Woodson, Sam Shields, Tramon Williams), a trade there (Al Harris) and a draft pick here and there (Nick Collins, Casey Hayward, Micah Hyde) — has created as much landfill as any position on the team in recent decades.
Countless draft picks, scads of free-agent dollars and untold time and effort invested in undrafted prospects did not produce the results previous general managers and head coaches hoped. The excellence Woodson, Collins, Shields and Williams exhibited during the 2010 Super Bowl run proved unsustainable and until now the Packers were spinning their wheels on the back end.
Gutekunst has changed all that by hitting on one move after another with his secondary. Most importantly, he has never stopped trying to improve the position.
“The way that the league is trending, you need a lot of DBs to get through the season,” Gutekunst said this summer.
He hit a home run with the selection of cornerback Jaire Alexander with the 18th pick in the 2018 draft and is rounding second headed for third with the selection of safety Darnell Savage with the 21st pick in the ’19 draft.
He filled major voids with the freeagent signings of Williams in ’18 and safety Adrian Amos in ’19, providing the Packers a standard of work ethic and professionalism the team hadn’t seen since Woodson and Harris were leading the way a decade ago.
Prior to and during training camp, he padded the defensive back room with versatile veterans Will Redmond, Chandon Sullivan, Ibraheim Campbell and Natrell Jamerson — all of whom had been in NFL locker rooms before and were well past the stage of just hoping to make a team — and let them fight it out for spots on the 53.
On Sunday in Dallas, when starting cornerback Kevin King was in and out of the lineup with groin and knee injuries, Savage was lost to an ankle injury and Alexander was getting his lunch handed to him by Cowboys receiver Amari Cooper, hope was not lost.
In previous years, the Packers would have counted on undrafted free agents — guys like Josh Hawkins, Lenzy Pipkins, Herb Waters, Donatello Brown and Marwin Evans — to hold it together on the road in a critical NFC midseason game.
Instead, Sullivan moved into the slot and had a crucial first-half interception. Redmond moved into the safety position and would have had a game-clinching interception in the end zone — set up by Sullivan’s deflection — had outside linebacker Za’Darius Smith not been flagged for an illegal hands to the face penalty.
Redmond wound up playing 55 snaps on defense and 20 on special teams and Sullivan wound up playing 38 on defense and 13 on special teams in the Packers’ 34-24 victory. Including special teams, Redmond had nine tackles, including one for loss, and Sullivan had two tackles, an interception and a pass deflected.
“You know, it’s always good to have guys that let you know, No. 1, is that the stage isn’t too big,” defensive backs coach Jason Simmons said. “Just that they’ve played before, you’ve seen them play.
“But the thing is more than anything, these guys here, they might not start, but even in prior weeks when they weren’t anticipating getting any reps, they still prepared as though they were starters. That’s a good thing about the DB world we have here.”
When he was in charge, Thompson wanted to bring players up through the Packers system and wasn’t interested in obtaining players with other backgrounds. He signed his share of street free agents in the offseason just like Gutekunst, but the latter hasn’t thought twice about building the team with players from other organizations.
The names most people associate with his talent import are Za’Darius and Preston Smith, Amos and guard Billy Turner, all of whom signed bigmoney free-agent deals. Redmond and Sullivan were just blips on the transaction wire when they occurred.
But Redmond is a former thirdround pick of the San Francisco 49ers, who had been clocked in the 40-yard dash at 4.38 seconds his junior year at Mississippi State. He tore his right ACL during his senior season and missed his entire rookie year recovering.
He returned the following year but injured his ankle in training camp and was released. He spent almost a year with Kansas City (where he worked with Harris, who was the Chiefs’ secondary coach) before getting cut again. The Packers added him to their practice squad in October, elevated him to the 53-man roster in November and played him in five games before he was put on injured reserve (shoulder).
He came to training camp hungry and desperate to prove he belonged.
Philadelphia signed Sullivan as an undrafted free agent in May 2018, put him on the practice squad after training camp and signed him to the 53 after a slew of injuries in the secondary. He was released in May and Gutekunst signed him as soon as he cleared waivers.
Sullivan knew he could play in the NFL and it didn’t matter to him where it would be. So, he worked at just about every position in the secondary and when he started showing up near the ball the coaches took note. He finished third on the team in tackles with 17 during the exhibition games and added an interception and five pass break-ups.
When Simmons sent him in against Philadelphia to play the slot two weeks ago and then again against Dallas, it wasn’t a move of desperation. There were other options, but on Sunday, Sullivan was the best available player to cover receiver Randall Cobb in the slot.
“I just wanted to do anything I could to help my team,” Sullivan said. “It didn’t matter if it was nickel, corner or safety. When I got in, I just wanted to do my part.”
The Packers picked off Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott three times and survived a comeback attempt that might have sunk them in previous years.
Simmons deserves a lot of credit for taking what Gutekunst gave him and developing the talent into a complete secondary. He and coordinator Mike Pettine worked players in numerous positions during training camp in anticipation of having to adjust for injuries during the regular season.
So, whether they needed Redmond to match up with a bigger receiver in the slot or Sullivan to match up with Cobb, they were ready.
“I think the worst thing you can ever do as a coach is to put guys in a box,” Simmons said. “You always want to give guys the opportunity to go on and make the team. That’s my main thing now. You’re not a starter, what value do you bring to the team?
“I want to give those guys an opportunity to bring value to the football team, not just to corner or nickel or the slot. Add value to the team. We all know injuries happen here, we’ve seen it in the past, so it’s given me some foresight to get as many people ready as I can.”
Despite giving up 441 yards net passing against the Cowboys, the Packers rank 14th in passing yards allowed (238.6), fifth in completion percentage (58.2), tied for second in interceptions (seven) and fourth in opponent passer rating (75.9). They’ve benefited greatly from the newfound pass rush and the best quarterbacks on their schedule are yet to come.
But they also haven’t needed Campbell, who is eligible to return from the physically unable to perform list after the Detroit game Monday night, or promising rookie cornerback Ka’dar Hollman, who just returned from a neck injury. And they have another intriguing rookie cornerback, Kabion Ento, on the practice squad pining for his opportunity to get on the field.
Thanks to Gutekunst, they have another waiting list to brag about.