Davon House – No One Succeeds in Jacksonville
Call this a footnote to my recent piece, urging the Green Bay Packers to bring cornerback Davon House back.
Some football people, including some Packers fans, don’t think Green Bay should be interested in him, because House “failed” with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Don’t believe it.
It’s more like no one succeeds there. The Jaguars are a train wreck, the Keystone cops, the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, the league’s biggest sinkhole.
Below are the team’s last nine first-round picks. The upcoming draft will mark the sixth year in a row the Jaguars get a top-five overall selection (No. 4).
Guys chosen that high ought to be perennial Pro Bowl selections and most of them should become All-Pros. This team should be a playoff team every year with all the high draft picks they accumulate. But here’s the sum total of the honors achieved during the careers of these nine players: two were named to the PWFA All-Rookie team.
The Jaguars turn silk purses into a sows’ ears.
Here are the team’s last nine first-round draft picks, where they were picked and their position.
- 2016: No. 5 — CB, Jalen Ramsey
- 2015: No. 3 — OLB, Dante Fowler
- 2014: No. 3 — QB, Blake Bortles
- 2013: No. 2 — T, Luke Joeckel
- 2012: No. 5 — WR, Justin Blackmon
- 2011: No. 10 — QB, Blaine Gabbert
- 2010: No. 10 — DT, Tyson Alualo
- 2009: No. 8 — T, Eugene Monroe
- 2008: No. 8 — DE, Derrick Harvey
Davon House did not fail with the Jaguars. His only mistake was agreeing to go there. In 2015, he broke the team’s all-time record for passes defended (23), led the team in interceptions (4), and was second in tackles (49) among the DBs.
How good is 23 passes defended? The Packers’ top-five career leaders are Tramon Williams, Charles Woodson, Al Harris, Nick Collins, and Sam Shields – and not one of them ever had more than 20 passes defended in a season.
House’s reward: the Jaguars benched him for almost all of 2016 and then released him on March 6. No one should hold it against House that the Jaguars are the biggest squanderers of talent in the league.
Now that Micah Hyde has signed with the Bills, the need for Green Bay to re-claim Davon House is all the more pressing!
Props to Rob….Their is a lot of truth he says in what he’s trying to convey.
On a broader, more generalized outlook, there are often intangibles that make a player succeed or excel on one team, and not another. It can range from anything to schemes run, coaching, the climate of the team, team disfunction or team unity, supporting cast and so on and so on.
Kudos Rob.
I`ve read other people`s responses to House on here, namely that he isn`t very good. I do not agree. When he played in Green Bay he made substantiall improvements and worked very hard. There was a point where I felt he deserved to start opposite of Sam Shields. That of course never happened. I watched him play and I never saw him just let people run free in the secondary like these people we have now. To those who think he`s no better that what`s already there, Do they have anyone who recorded 4 INT`s and 23 Passes Defended on their roster. It would be very much worth it to bring hom back and reunite him with Joe Whitt.