One of the big questions of the offseason for the Green Bay Packers is where Micah Hyde will end up.
Hyde played cornerback in college and manned that position in his rookie season with the Packers. He was impressive, with 55 tackles, a sack and a forced fumble.
The coaching staff noticed. Hyde was a part-time player in 2013, sitting behind Sam Shields and Tramon Williams, and often Davon House. But he made enough of an impact when he was on the field that coach Mike McCarthy said the Packers need to find a way to get Hyde on the field more in 2014.
That will be tough to do at cornerback with Casey Hayward returning from injury and all three of those other guys still on the roster. That’s led to speculation that Hyde will be moved to safety, the Packers’ worst position in 2013.
That’s all it is at this point though. Not even Hyde knows what’s going on.
“I’m getting tweeted at and I have my family asking me and my friends asking me, ‘I heard you’re playing safety. I heard you’re playing safety,’ ” Hyde said. “And I’m just like, ‘Yo, I haven’t heard anything. You guys know more than I know.’ ”
Of course, Hyde is open to anything that gets him on the field full time and that certainly isn’t going to be playing cornerback.
We should find out what the coaching staff has in mind when offseason workouts begin.
8 Comments
Hyde will definitely play some safety this year if Hayward, Shields, and Williams are healthy. House may also figure into the corner mix and make Hyde more available for safety if House becomes more consistent. House looks great some games and other games looks terrible at corner.
Hyde last year in preseason was a standout. At the first of the regular season was not so good; however as the season went on Hyde showed up a lot better with some experience. Hyde overall supports the run and tackles well. Not sure yet about balls skills and awareness on pass plays.
We have to get a safety who can find and get to the ball on pass downs. Really thought Burnett was going to be that guy. Last year Burnett sure had his problems. Not sure what Burnetts problem was last year hopefully it has been corrected or we will still have problems at safety this year no matter who is back with Burnett. You can say Hyde let the Game get away in the playoffs with dropping the int ; however Burnett let a ball go right by him for a T.D when he had perfect position for a int in the same game.
We no question must draft a safety if for no other reason depth. Not sure we should reach for one at our current spot in the first round.
I believe that Hyde continued by saying that he would be willing to play corner, safety, linebacker or defensive line, if that got him on the field every down. Whatever it takes. That is my kind of football player!
I sure hope they draft atleast 2 safeties..this hoping and praying for improvement from within..and expecting burnett to actually play like an nfl caliber safety is getting ridiculous!! If he sucks again in preaseason..dont even bother putting him on the field..fuck him!! Who does he think he is ricky weeks?
This is an interesting conundrum to have. Common wisdom would suggest drafting a S in the first round, but if you move Hyde there, you take the risk of drafting another first rounder who can’t crack the starting line-up.
I suppose it is possible that if Hyde is too good to beat out that maybe you could replace Burnett with a rookie, but considering our investment in Burnett, I find that unlikely.
I guess it frees up TT to draft whoever he wants- the “best player available”… of course.
Let’s get Sonny Weaver, aka Kevin Costner, to come in and help out with personnel decisions.
Iltarion, I was thinking the exact same thing. The year Hyde came out of college, he won the defensive player of the year award in the SEC. That was while he played mostly at safety. I think it’s just ‘icing on the cake’ that he played cb this year and improved his man-coverage versatility. From what I’ve seen, he’s a savage in the zone. His anticipation and quickness rival both Haywards’ and a young Charles Woodson.
Like you mentioned, potential like that will likely convince TT to stick to his ‘best player available’ philosophy. Mark my Murphy’s: TT will not trade up or back in the 1st round. He will, however, draft whichever concensus top 10 pick falls to 21 this year, regardless of position (perhaps excluding qb, it would seem like an uneducated move with this crop of signal-callers).
Bear, Hyde played in the Big Ten, he also played some games at safety not “most”. I’m excited about his potential as well, but 1) even though it seems likely, we don’t know that he’ll be moved to safety-that could be contingent on a number of factors besides his performance/ability: injuries, the performance of House, the draft, etc. 2) Hayward doesn’t play safety and Chuck isn’t all that great at it either.
When did Iowa move to the SEC?