Jaylon Smith was released by the Green Bay Packers on Tuesday. The move came only a couple of weeks after he signed with the team following his release from the Dallas Cowboys. Smith was a healthy scratch in Week 8 against the Arizona Cardinals, indicating that something like this was possible.
However, even after Smith’s release, general manager Brian Gutekunst has to be thrilled with how his in-season moves have turned out so far.
When a team picks up players who got cut during the year or scooping up practice squad pieces from other teams, there’s no expectation that all those moves will turn into home runs — quite the opposite. It’s considered a success if a team can get any consistent contributors from those types of secondary roster moves. The Packers have had a couple this year.
Rasul Douglas was an afterthought on Arizona’s practice squad. Green Bay gets credit for picking him up, but it’s not as though they viewed him as a can’t-miss addition to their secondary. Injuries to Jaire Alexander and Kevin King had the Packers scrambling, when Douglas came in. He’s been sensational since his arrival.
Douglas didn’t start in Week 6 against the Chicago Bears. Instead, Green Bay rolled with Isaac Yiadom as the No. 2 corner behind Eric Stokes. Defensive coordinator Joe Barry deserves a lot of credit for ditching ideas that don’t work before they get out of hand. Against the Bears in Week 6, Justin Fields and the Chicago offense wasted no time throwing right at Yiadom. The opening-drive disaster led to a touchdown for the Bears and a quick benching for Yiadom. In came Douglas. The upgrade was immediately apparent.
Douglas has provided stability at the corner spot. In fact, he’s been stellar. Whether or not it’s sustainable is a topic for another day. So far, the veteran has shown that he can still be a significant contributor to an NFL secondary. And he hasn’t been the only in-season pick-up to play well.
When the Houston Texans released Whitney Mercilus, Gutekunst pounced on the opportunity to bring in the veteran edge rusher. Like the Douglas signing, this was more out of necessity given the injuries to Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith.
Mercilus has seen his role expanded two weeks into his time with the Packers. He played 29 of a possible 59 snaps on defense in Arizona. Compare that with the 36 snaps Rashan Gary saw, and the 34 Preston Smith got. Mercilus was right in the mix with the top dogs on the edge.
While he hasn’t made any huge impact plays yet, it’s become clear the Packers are smitten with Mercilus given his extended workload over the last two weeks. He’s shown he has gas left in the tank. The change of scenery worked, and he was well worth the pick-up by Gutekunst.
There will be eye-rolling from the section of the fanbase that wanted a big splash move at the trade deadline. Green Bay never goes that route. It doesn’t mean that can’t change, there’s always room for an outlier scenario. But it seemed incredibly unlikely that there would be a Von Miller-type move for the Packers. Instead, Gutekunst and the rest of the front office have found hidden gems along the way, but that requires giving a lot of guys a shot.
Smith didn’t work out, and neither did the Quinton Dunbar signing. That’s normal when you’re picking up players in-season amid a ton of injuries on the active roster. For those pessimists who focus on the signings that didn’t work out: Did you foresee Douglas being this good with the Packers? And what about the late offseason move to get De’Vondre Campbell? Those two deals alone outweigh the moves that never happened or the failed experiments with Smith and Dunbar.
No team is ever going to consistently hit when picking up players who were on a practice squad or street free agents. Oftentimes the decisions made to bring in said players are made out of desperation. Green Bay was a bit thin both at cornerback and up front on the defensive edge. In came Douglas and Mercilus. The former has been tremendous, and the latter is finding his niche on the defense. Gutekunst deserves plenty of credit for making these low-risk, high-reward moves.
