Why Green Bay Packers Could Win Big by Investing in Draft 'Projects'

Technically, every draft prospect is a project. College performance doesn't guarantee NFL production, and franchises spend a lot of time and resources investing in young players they hope will pay off down the line.

Still, some draft prospects are bigger projects than others, and the Green Bay Packers took two of them in the 2015 NFL draft: defensive backs Damarious Randall (Round 1) and Quinten Rollins (Round 2).

Cornerback, a strength for Green Bay in 2014, was a major need heading into the draft. The Packers lost former starter Tramon Williams and valuable depth player Davon House in free agency.

While they have slot stud Casey Hayward available as an option to move outside to start opposite Sam Shields in 2015, ideally the Packers needed to bring in players to compete with him as well as provide depth at the position.

Randall's draft stock had been rising in the weeks leading up to the draft, with some experts projecting him to be taken in Round 1.

"No player has flown up the board faster over the past few months than Randall," wrote Rob Rang of CBS Sports in his last mock before the draft, projecting the Indianapolis Colts to grab Randall one spot ahead of Green Bay at No. 29.

However, analysts gave Randall a first-round ranking as a safety. The Packers plan to use him as a cornerback, along with Rollins. Neither played cornerback primarily in college. That's where the project starts.

General manager Ted Thompson has never drafted a cornerback in Round 1. Technically, he still hasn't.

Randall entered the draft listed as a free safety, though some worried he was undersized for an NFL safety at 5'11" and 196 pounds. "Undersized and lacks ideal strength and bulk for the safety position," Dane Brugler wrote in his draft profile on Randall at CBS Sports. 

Height	Weight	Arms	40 time	Vert jump	'14 stats
5'11"	196 lbs	30 1/4"	4.46 sec*	38 in*	106 TT, 9.5 TFL, 12 PD, 3 INT

Size won't be an issue for Randall if he moves to cornerback for the Packers, though he and Rollins—also at 5'11"—don't offer an improvement in height for Green Bay's secondary, where Hayward, Shields and 2014 rookie Demetri Goodson are all 5'11" as well.

Randall started all 13 games at safety for the Arizona State Sun Devils in 2014, leading the team with 106 total tackles, 12 passes defended and three interceptions and earning first-team All-Pac-12 honors.

Although Randall has the ball skills and speed (with a 4.46-second 40-yard dash) to play corner in the pros, he'll have to work at it. "His cover skills and technique need quite a bit of work to be ready for the NFL level," NFL.com's Lance Zierlein wrote.

Rollins is in a similar boat. His athleticism is off the charts, having been a four-year basketball star at Miami (Ohio), where he played point guard. He suspected he might have a future in football, however, and made the transition in 2014.

As a first-year cornerback (and starter) last season, Rollins had an eye-popping year. He racked up 72 tackles, four tackles for loss, 16 passes defended and a conference-best seven interceptions, which was good for the third most in the nation. 

This was in his first (and only) season at the position. 

However, Rollins, too, will have to develop his technique to play corner at the NFL level. "He needs to be coached up with backpedal and overall technique, but he has moldable traits with the basketball athleticism, ball skills and defensive mindset," Brugler wrote. 

That's where cornerbacks coach Joe Whitt Jr. comes in. 

Height	Weight	Arms	40 time	Vert jump	'14 stats
5'11"	195 lbs	30 1/4"	4.57 sec	36.5 in	72 TT, 4 TFL, 16 PD, 7 INT

When drafting two players who didn't play cornerback primarily in college, Thompson knew he had an ace in his pocket in Whitt. (Having Hayward on deck ready to start certainly helped, too.)

Whitt has held the position on Green Bay's staff since 2009 and has been with the team since 2008. He has played a major role in developing three defensive backs drafted during that time: 2011 fourth-round selection House, 2012 second-rounder Hayward and 2013 fifth-round pick Micah Hyde. 

Despite starting only 14 games in his career with the Packers, House developed into such a high-upside player that he fetched $6.25 million per year from the Jacksonville Jaguars in free agency. 

Hayward has developed into one of the league's best slot corners. In fact, he was ranked No. 1 in 2014, per Pro Football Focus, nabbing three interceptions on 25 targets and allowing opposing quarterbacks a passer rating of just 70.5. He's shown enough promise in the snaps he has played outside to be a likely candidate to replace Williams in 2015.

And Hyde has become a Swiss army knife for defensive coordinator Dom Capers, a weapon who can play safety, cornerback, inside, outside—you name it. That kind of versatility is key for a modern scheme. 

As offenses run more and more spread formations that are difficult to defend, defenses must get creative. The Packers are in defensive sub-packages more often than they're in their base 3-4, so the starting nickel role is an extremely important job.

Theoretically, Randall and Rollins will either compete for it or rotate into it, unless one of them beats out Hayward for the starting outside job. They'll also definitely be valuable assets in special teams coverage. 

Whitt may develop weapons for the Packers, but Green Bay knows it has a secret one in Whitt.

"Since Whitt took over as cornerbacks coach in 2009, the Packers have registered a league-high 114 interceptions, with 63 of them coming from Whitt’s cornerbacks, the most in the league by a cornerback group over that span," Packers.com proclaims.

On multiple occasions, Whitt's development of Green Bay's defensive backs has proved to be a crutch when the team faced unexpected injuries.

As Packers.com points out, Whitt's preparation of Hayward proved crucial in 2012, as Charles Woodson moved from corner to safety and Shields and House both missed games with injuries. Hayward led all NFL rookies with six interceptions and was tied for fifth overall. He finished third in voting for the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year.

When Hayward saw time in just three games in 2013 while dealing with a hamstring injury, Hyde rose to the occasion, leading the team’s rookies with 54 tackles on the season and adding a sack, a forced fumble and four passes defensed.

Most telling is the fact that, for many years, both of Green Bay's starting outside corners in Shields and Williams were undrafted free agents.

Maybe another team needing to replace two starting-caliber cornerbacks wouldn't have drafted prospects who required so much development. But Whitt's track record gave Thompson that option.

Whitt, for his part, is always up for the challenge. 

"We're happy to have the two men that we have coming in," Whitt said in a press conference Friday. "The CB room has changed this year with Tramon and Davon leaving and Jarrett up in the air. ... It's exciting for me as a coach to be able to take a new group of skill sets to try to work to our team goal to win a championship."

What does Whitt see specifically in his two new additions to the room?

"Randall is real quick. He played safety, so he was in the slot a lot of the time," Whitt said about Green Bay's first-round pick. "Quick burst, close, he was aggressive in coverage. He'll have an opportunity to play in a couple of different packages."

Though the Packers haven't indicated that Randall would be used as a safety down the line, remember that starting safety Morgan Burnett's cap hit will reach $7 million by 2017, the final year of his contract. Having more hybrid defensive backs on the roster is never a bad thing.

And Rollins?

"His rare ball skills—that's something special," Whitt said. "He can bend. He can motor-mirror. He can do some of those things already."

"My job is, as a DB coach, No. 1 is to get my players to do what Dom Capers wants them to do," Whitt stressed in his presser. "I don't care who they bring in the room. I'm gonna get the most out of them."

He certainly can point to players on the roster who back up that statement. 

We'll never know if the Packers would have drafted prospects like Washington's Marcus Peters or Wake Forest's Kevin Johnson if they had been on the board at No. 30. The answer is probably yes.

But in Randall and Rollins, the Packers have two playmaking athletes who, once they've had time to develop, could become future starters under Whitt's tutelage.