Packers Sign WR Hazelton, Release CB Martin
GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers signed receiver Damon Hazelton on Friday, one day before their preseason game with the New York Jets.
With Devin Funchess, Juwann Winfree and Chris Blair sidelined by injuries, the Packers are short at receiver – especially if Davante Adams, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb sit out a second consecutive preseason game. With those seven potentially out, the Packers would have had only Equanimeous St. Brown, Malik Taylor, Reggie Begelton and Amari Rodgers available to face the Jets.
Hazelton, who measured 6-2 3/4 with a 4.64 in the 40, worked out on Monday. He caught 163 passes for 2,231 yards and 21 touchdowns for Ball State, Virginia Tech and Missouri but went undrafted this year. He signed with Houston after the draft but was released before Saturday's preseason game at Green Bay. He was a two-time all-ACC selection with back-to-back seasons of eight touchdowns at Virginia Tech before transferring to Missouri for his senior year, when he caught 30 balls for 397 yards and one touchdown.
There were much bigger expectations but he battled hamstring issues and dropped passes – two vs. Alabama and two vs. Florida – that cost him playing time. However, he came to the rescue with a big fourth quarter in a victory over Arkansas.
“Whatever my role may be for the team, it doesn’t really matter — it’s not that big of a deal for me,” Hazelton said in a story by The Post-Dispatch. “Adjust to my role. You go back a little bit, and a lot of stuff that you never see coming (happened). It didn’t really bother me, though. I just looked at it as another way to be like, ‘Oh, now you can be a leader for these guys on the sideline, which you have never really had to do in your career.’ So for me it was a good thing.
“I’m just sitting there like, ‘I’m so happy for these guys making plays.’ ... We’re working hard, pushing each other. So for me it motivated me to keep going. I know they’re gonna go in and make a play. Whenever they call me to go in, I’m going to make a play. Doesn’t really matter who gets the credit.”
For his mother, football was a way to keep Hazelton out of trouble, where he grew up surrounded by drugs and violence in Baltimore.
“He’s seen drugs on the streets, he’s seen kids stealing cars, he’s seen a lot,” Lisa Pearsall told The Daily Press in 2018. “(In May), one of his friends got killed in Baltimore. He was shot. I had to call Damon and tell him while he was down at Virginia Tech. His friend was 20 years old. Another of his really good friends he played football with for two or three years got shot while he was in a car. That happened when he was like 14, 15, maybe 16 years old. It’s rough. It’s really rough.”
To make room on the roster, the Packers released cornerback Dominique Martin.
