The Packers took a pair of defensive backs in the second round of this year’s draft, which didn’t come as a huge surprise after they lost a couple of members of last year’s 31st-ranked pass defense.
One returning member of the cornerback corps says that it won’t just be new faces who are responsible for better results this time around, however. Cornerback Damarious Randall missed six games because of injury last season and says that a return to health is going to lead to a more effective season on the field.
“I was hurt. But last year is last year,” Randall said, via ESPN.com. “Obviously moving forward, I am healthy and hopefully I’m going to stay healthy. And people are going to see why I was drafted in the first round. People are going to see why the Packers believe in me and why they kept putting me out there. People will see. My game is going to speak for itself. If I come back and be an All-Pro guy, a Pro Bowler, then people are going to say, ‘Ohhhhh, it was the injuries’ and this and that. But I’m just going to let them talk.”
Randall was the team’s first-round pick in 2015, a year after they took safety HaHa Clinton-Dix in the first round and a round before they added cornerback Quinten Rollins, and the addition of two more high picks this year means Green Bay has used a lot of draft capital on defensive backs recently. Getting the desired return on that investment would do a lot for their hopes of repeating as the NFC North champions.