Kings of the North: Why the Green Bay Packers beat the Detroit Lions
By Kenn Korb
Hyde Making Big-Time Impact
The corner spot for Green Bay has been the sorest of sore spots on the defense all season, and somehow just keeps getting worse overall.
Sam Shields hasn’t been around since Week 1, and after promising rookie years both Damarious Randall and Quinten Rollins have been endlessly injured and terrible.
The best player at the position has been second-year undrafted corner LaDarius Gunter by miles (though that says more about the dearth of solid play from the others than anything, as Gunter has been mostly average in a role he probably never expected to be in).
Lately though, we’ve seen someone else begin to step up at this position: Micah Hyde.
Hyde has had a rough season of his own, with blown coverages and athletic limitations (as well as his own injuries) sapping his effectiveness; for a good portion of the year it seemed he was only on the roster anymore because Green Bay literally had no other options to send out there. In the past couple of weeks he’s begun to turn that narrative around, and this Lions game was possibly the best showing of the bunch.
He was the shining star for the defense, coming away as Pro Football Focus’ top-graded Green Bay defender on the evening. His INT of MAtthew Stafford towards the end of this contest was the first and only turnover forced by either side and effectively ended any small chance of Detroit making a comeback.
Another note on that play: he was playing as an outside corner, something he rarely does. With Rollins’ neck injury and nobody else really even physically capable of suiting up at corner, more of this my be coming in the playoffs.
In the wake of Randall Cobb‘s recent injury struggles, Hyde also has been helping on special teams as well. This week wasn’t as strong for him the the previous outing, but he did take 2 of his punt returns up for double-digit yardage (one came back due to a penalty; that’s not his fault, though).
All in all, the strong performance from Hyde at Green Bay’s most treacherously damaged position group was the exact sort of effort the team needed to not just win this contest, but prove they may actually have a passable answer when they face the Giants — and, should they win that contest, any other team in the playoffs.