Lingering questions at the safety position isn’t a new phenomenon for the Green Bay Packers. Last season, Darnell Savage was benched in the second half of the season for Rudy Ford who, a few weeks later, was benched and replaced by Savage.
The Packers then let safety Adrian Amos walk in free agency this offseason after Amos was a four-year mainstay at the position.
With preseason in full swing, head coach Matt LaFleur is getting a chance to see some of the possible solutions. The one that might makes the most sense is sliding cornerback Rasul Douglas over to one of the two spots at the position.
General manager Brian Gutekunst mentioned it as a possibility back in March at the NFL Combine.
“(Douglas) has such good eyes and instincts when he’s back there and seeing the whole field,” Gutekunst said via Packers.com. “Anytime you move a guy inside, whether it’s the nickel or the safety, and you have both sides you really have to worry about, there’s a curve there that’s going to take some time to really understand that. But his skillset as far as his eyes, his ability to go get the ball, his angles, his instincts, and he’s a pretty good tackler, too, he could make that transition if that’s what we decided to do.”
The seed has been planted for awhile now. The reason the idea has taken root is all about the developments in the Packers’ cornerback room.
Jaire Alexander is an All-Pro corner. He’ll easily lock down the No. 1 spot. Eric Stokes suffered a season-ending injury in Week 9 last season and is working his way back; as of now he’s still on the PUP list. Once Stokes returns, he catapults into the conversation and is certainly one of Green Bay’s “best five” in the secondary, as LaFleur often likes to bundle it together.
Carrington Valentine has been the surprise. The rookie seventh-round pick out of Kentucky has been brilliant all summer. Valentine has opened eyes so much, that LaFleur has been asked about Valentine already potentially earning snaps from the jump.
” I think we definitely have to look at something because he’s done a lot up to this point,” LaFleur said. “We need to see how he keeps progressing.”
The emergence of Valentine has provided LaFleur with flexibility and at a critical juncture. Newly signed safeties Tarvarius Moore and Jonathan Owens haven’t exactly wowed yet, and pairing Douglas with Savage could be the recipe that works.
What could cause a roadblock in this masterplan is Douglas and whether or not he’s open to the idea. Good thing for LaFleur and Co., Douglas not only sounds fine with the idea, he’s hyping it up.
“I think it’s I’m just a ballhawk, so people want to see me roam and be like Ed Reed. They want to see that,” Douglas said earlier in the week. “You see somebody with a lot of picks, you’re like, ‘All right, if he was at safety, we know he could be more.’ It’s one of those. Now they want to see it.”
Whoever the “they” is that Douglas is referencing is unknown. But if he means Packers fans, he’s hit the nail on the head.
LaFleur often mentions finding the combination of the best five for the offensive line. On Wednesday he did it with the secondary when he was asked if Douglas might slide over to safety.
“Potentially. It’s trying to find those best five, I guess,” LaFleur said. “We’re going to look at everything. We’ll look at everything and try to put our best people who can make plays, and if ‘Sul’s one of those guys … we had ‘Sul obviously in there at the nickel position last year quite a bit. So, he has a really high football IQ and he understands the jobs of really everybody in the back end. We’ll see where it goes.”
Green Bay loves its flexibility when it comes to roster construction, and Douglas offers them a chance to patch up a position that appears weaker than most when combing through the Packers’ roster. Moreso, if Valentine truly is going to get reps right from the start of the regular season, that creates a conundrum with four corners needing run in Alexander, Douglas, Stokes, and the rookie. Moving Douglas opens up the door for Valentine if he is ready and instantly boosts the safety position too.
Stokes’ timeline to return to action is a major player in all of this as well. If Stokes isn’t ready by Week 1 in Chicago, it’s impossible to imagine the Packers flipping Douglas to safety. If he is ready, in some capacity, the next move on the chessboard becomes more intriguing.
