Is Kentrell Brice the Packers’ Next Undrafted Star?
A lot of eyes will be on safety Kentrell Brice when the Green Bay Packers open camp later this month.
Brice impressed at a pro day event in Louisiana, but went undrafted. Packers scouts, however, held their own workout, and obviously liked what they saw.
Depth chart specialists Ourlads.com already has him as the Packers’ No. 3 strong safety, behind Morgan Burnett and Chris Banjo.
Free safety is also strong at the top, but not deep. Ha Ha Clinton-Dix is followed by Micah Hyde and then rookies Marwin Evans and Jermaine Whitehead.
The Packers kept five safeties in 2015, with Sean Richardson joining Burnett, Clinton-Dix, Hyde and Banjo.
Athletically, when compared to Burnett, Banjo, Clinton-Dix, or Hyde, Brice posts the top scores across the board. His 40-yard dash time is reportedly as low as 4.38 seconds. His vertical (42”) and long jumps (11’1”) are superlative. His 21-rep bench press is fabulous for his size. None of the above four even approach any of Brice’s marks.
At 5’11” Brice is the shortest of the five, but the 21-year-old packs 200 pounds onto that frame. He’s a banger in the Atari Bigby mold.
Burnett’s five-year, $26 million contract is up after the 2017 season. Banjo is set to become a restricted free agent in 2017. Brice is one of 17 Packers with a standard three-year undrafted free agent contract, averaging $540,000 per year. Burnett is 27 and Banjo is 26.
While Brice doesn’t look to see much action this year, his athletic gifts suggest he has an opportunity to make the team. If he can do that, becoming a future starter for the Packers looks like a reachable goal for the former Louisiana Tech Bulldog.
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I haven’t seen any video from this guy, but as we have seen since forever, the College game doesn’t always transition to the Pros. But it’s the Pack, so I am going to be naturally optimistic. Especially with those stats and the fact of the looming contracts. Sounds like a good find at the right time.
The new tre
I watched a few game films of Tech because I wanted to see Vernon Butler. Brice really did not show up much mainly because he played deep. He did come up fast is support, however Brice was usually, but not always, out of the film. Did not shy away from contact. Look at Vernon Butler game film if you want to see Brice.
I’m still a little pissed that we chose Kenny Clark over Vernon Butler. Time will tell but I felt Butler was the better player to select on the board. Carolina picked him a few picks later and they seem to know how to build a pretty good defense, so…
Yes. I thought Nkemdiche or Butler over Clark. Against Alabama Nkemdiche could not be stopped. Never know how much character played into passing on Nkemdiche. Did not bother Arizona. Tech does not play against a lot of quality competition, so maybe that was why he was passed over. Did not bother Carolina. Time will tell. I hope Clark turns out to be the best of the bunch now that he is a Packer.
I remember Morgan Burnett having an insane broad jump. Looking it up at nfldraftscout shows it was 11’08 so he can’t be at the top across the board.
That being said, Brice’s numbers are definitely VERY good. Now I need to go look how it’s compared to other safeties over the last few years. Overall that has to be in the top few %.
Good memory. I try to use only NFL combine scores, and Morgan passed on doing the jumps (why?), did them instead at a pro day event. I had no choice but to use pro day scores for Brice, as he wasn’t invited to the NFL combine–and I don’t trust that 40-yard dash time. ESPN has an apparently outdated list of all-time NFL combine long jumps, showing the greatest to be 11’5″. However, Byron Jones recorded an amazing 12’3″ leap in 2015. Does Burnett have the second-best such jump ever? Not sure, but he was a high school track and field jump star in high school.
He was one of the few UDFA I highlighted in a previous TP post (just after the draft) that I liked. So, I’m rooting for him to make the team.