Special Teams Will Decide Roster Battles

As outside linebackers coach Mike Smith put it: “There ain’t going to be a fourth spot to play outside linebacker. It’s going to be a spot to be on special teams.”

GREEN BAY, Wis. – As the Green Bay Packers get ready to embark on their three-game preseason, the battle for roster spots, in many cases, will come down to special teams.

Take outside linebacker, for instance. So long as they’re healthy, Za’Darius Smith, Preston Smith and Rashan Gary are going to command the lion’s share of the snaps. Thus, with Randy Ramsey out indefinitely with an ankle injury, whoever emerges as the fourth outside linebacker in the group consisting of Jonathan Garvin, Tipa Galeai, Delonate Scott and newcomer Chauncey Rivers will have to be a big-time asset on special teams.

“That fourth spot, that’s the one you’ve got to fight for, and to get that fourth spot, you’d better be damn good on special teams, and they know that,” outside linebackers coach Mike Smith said. “There ain’t going to be a fourth spot to play outside linebacker. It’s going to be a spot to be on special teams.”

Defensive backs coach Jerry Gray has the same message for his young quartet of safeties. Nobody is going to knock off the starting tandem of Darnell Savage and Adrian Amos. Somebody will emerge as the third safety; veteran Will Redmond held that role last season and Henry Black has manned that spot with Redmond sidelined by injury. Black, Vernon Scott, Innis Gaines and Christian Uphoff might not be factors on defense but there’s a ticket to the roster on special teams. Black, for instance, led the team in tackles during the playoffs.

“When you find big safeties, those guys can actually go and be good on special teams for you and then they can actually graduate to playing safety,” Gray said. “You have to be a good special teams player first. And if you can do that at a high level, then we’ll let you play safety. But if you can’t play special teams [for] 20 plays a game, how do you expect to play 60 plays a game? I’m a little bit old school. I like to see what guys can do when you’re out on the football field. Can you make our special teams better? Then you can actually play on defense.”

At receiver, Davante Adams, Allen Lazard, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Randall Cobb and Amari Rodgers are locks for five spots. The Packers figure to keep six or possibly seven. Juwann Winfree is having an excellent camp. Equanimeous St. Brown is back for his fourth season. Devin Funchess had a productive Family Night. Malik Taylor made the roster last year. They all can catch but can any of them cover a kick?

“I’m really excited about the competition in that group,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said. “I think we got a fairly deep group competing for some of those last roster spots. Special teams is going to be big and that’s going to be a big part of how we look at that. It always is, not only at that position but really across the board, and there’s going to be some difficult decisions in these next preseason games. It’s going to probably weigh heavily.”

New special teams coordinator Maurice Drayton has a big challenge in fixing Green Bay’s perennially feeble units. The headliners, of course, are the specialists. Drayton is leaning toward using rookies Amari Rodgers on punt returns and Kylin Hill on kickoff returns. Just as important are finding guys who will block and tackle.

“From top to bottom, unless you’re wearing jersey 12 or 10, we talk to all parties about special teams because collectively we’re going to have to do it together,” Drayton said. “If everybody carries the load, we’ll be fine.”