It’s rare for any NFL team to have three good cornerbacks, and the Green Bay Packers know that firsthand. They struggled to find them during the final years of Ted Thompson‘s tenure as the general manager, which included Ladarius Gunter trying to cover Julio Jones in an NFC Championship game.
Fortunately, that’s no longer an issue because the Packers have Jaire Alexander, Rasul Douglas, and Eric Stokes.
Expectations were high in 2022. In the previous year, Alexander missed most of the season because of a shoulder injury, so rookie Stokes had to step up his game, and Brian Gutekunst found Douglas on the Arizona Cardinals practice squad. With Alexander back from injury last season, there was a lot of anticipation over how the three would play together for the first time. But things quickly went sideways, for several different reasons.
First, Stokes struggled through a sophomore slump. After a solid 2021 season, particularly for a rookie, Stokes’ performance declined in the first half of 2022, and the numbers show how much. After allowing completions in 49.5% of his targets in 2021, he allowed catches in 80% of his targets in 2022. His yards per completion allowed went from 10.6 to 13.1, and yards per target increased from 5.3 to 10.4. His passer rating allowed when targeted went up from 71.3 to 123.5 — basically the difference from 2017 Brett Hundley and 2011 Aaron Rodgers.
In Week 9 against the Detroit Lions, Stokes suffered an ankle injury that ended his second season.
Another point is more applicable to 2023. During Stokes’ rookie season, the Packers planned to play Alexander and Stokes as boundary corners. With Alexander down, they added Douglas, who ended up finishing that season as the starter over Isaac Yiadom. Green Bay had acquired Yiadom in a trade for Josh Jackson in August.
The problem in 2022 was that the three Packers corners are preferably boundary players, so that wasn’t a natural fit to play in the slot. Alexander could be the best option, but he’s too good to be limited inside. So Green Bay decided to move Douglas to the nickel, and that decision also affected his performance. Douglas is not as quick as the slot demands. Furthermore, the best attributes of his game — intelligence, play recognition, and anticipation — become accentuated when he plays outside.
After Stokes’ injury, Douglas returned to the boundary and got better again. The Packers started using Keisean Nixon in the slot until defensive coordinator Joe Barry decided to move safety Darnell Savage there, with Adrian Amos and Rudy Ford playing deep.
If everyone is healthy in 2023, there should be a new battle. Amos and Ford are set to be free agents, but there is a realistic chance for both to be back. Meanwhile, Savage is under a fully guaranteed contract in his fifth-year option, so the Packers have to decide his role – not if he will be on the roster. But with Alexander as a lock to play outside, Stokes is not a surefire starter anymore. Maybe he will get a new chance as a slot corner, or perhaps he will have to fight Rasul Douglas to play outside.
For the Packers, the hope is there was a coaching staff disconnection last year. Defensive backs coach and passing game coordinator Jerry Gray seemed to dislike Joe Barry’s concepts, and the secondary showed poor communication skills throughout the year. That’s why the Packers didn’t make a strong effort to re-sign Gray, who ended up signing with the Atlanta Falcons to be an assistant head coach.
The good news is that Stokes has a good attitude to keep developing, according to head coach Matt LaFleur.
“He comes to work with the right attitude, with the right mentality, and I think he’ll continue to get better and better and better the more we progress through this thing,” LaFleur said during Stokes’ rookie season. “I just love what he’s all about as a person. I think he’s got a really great skill set to complement that and we’re fortunate to have that guy on our football team.”
Later, the Packers hired Greg Williams, who was with the Arizona Cardinals over the last four seasons, to be the cornerbacks coach and passing-game coordinator.
Williams is going to have to juggle multiple tasks in 2023. The first is to decide who will play where on the Packers secondary. The second — and maybe most important — is to get a talented player like Eric Stokes back on track.
