Green Bay Packers Defensive Deep Dive: Mike Daniels is worth every inch
Mike Daniels‘ performance dropped slightly between the 2015 and 2016 seasons.
The 2015 season was his best, but he’s still fairly young. He’s shown a lot of promise for the Green Bay Packers and he’s come up big for them, too.
Daniels finished the 2016 season with 33 tackles and 4 sacks, down from 49 tackles and 4 sacks (plus an interception) the previous season.
Now, it’s not a big deal if the defensive linemen aren’t grabbing too many, if any, interceptions since they don’t typically defend the pass.
The Green Bay Packers have a solid player in Mike Daniels. Throughout his time with them, he’s shown his passion for the game and his skill at it.
In an interview with MMQB back in December, he made the following comment when asked about his height as a defensive end.
"KAHLER: You are six feet tall, which is short for a defensive lineman. Does your height help you in any way?DANIELS: Yeah, good leverage. I think [height] is something that is starting to go a little bit to the wayside. You aren’t going to see a team with nothing but 6-0, 6-1 guys across the board, but you do see a couple of them. I’ve played and went and shook hands with guys after the game and there are quite a bit of defensive tackles in the NFL that I am eye-to-eye with. And I say, So you were called short too? They go, yep. I’m like, yep. They said we couldn’t make it, yet we’re both here. It’s a short-guy brotherhood. The “experts” said, Oh he’s not long enough to play the run. Shut up!"
Mike Daniels has impressed many in his time in Green Bay. If he can get back to what he had in the 2015 season, he’ll be set to make even more of an impact this season. It’s not a huge leap and provided he stays healthy, it should be quite manageable for him.
The game last season where Daniels had the biggest impact was in their second game against Minnesota on Christmas Eve. The Vikings won the first game between the two, while the team was struggling early in the season. Daniels came up with a sack and a fumble recovery in this game, which they won 38-25.
The NFL bumped him up last year on their “Top 100 players” list from 95 in 2016 to 84 in 2017. While that might not be the end-all-be-all ranking, it’s a nice sign for him as a player.
They did a short video on him for the feature.
Mike Daniels goes up against some great guards in the league. He’s shown that he can still make his way to the QB and cause disrupt when needed.
Next: Top 30 moments in Green Bay Packers history
He signed a four-year contract in 2015, so we’ll be seeing a lot more of him on this team.
I look forward to seeing how much he contributes to the defense this season.