4 players the Green Bay Packers gave up on way too soon

2. Casey Hayward, cornerback

The Green Bay Packers have seemingly always had the philosophy of draft and replace as needed, but they clearly misjudged the potential career arc of cornerback Casey Hayward.

A second-round pick in the 2012 NFL Draft, it's not like the Packers' scouting department and front office didn't know what they had in Hayward. He finished third in the league in Rookie of the Year voting back in that 2012 season after he had 20 passes broken up, six interceptions, and a forced fumble. Unfortunately, the follow-up to that was an injury-plagued 2013 campaign in which he only appeared in three games.

He bounced back in 2014 with another three interceptions, but didn't pick off any passes in 2015 and the Packers decided to let him hit free agency. The San Diego Chargers (at the time) picked Hayward up quickly, and even if he was priced out of the Packers' range, having his production in the secondary would have been worth finding a way to keep around.

Hayward was an All-Pro and Pro Bowl selection in each of his first two years with the Chargers, racking up 11 interceptions and 42 pass deflections. He was one of the better cornerbacks in the league for a handful of years and even had a late-career resurgence as a member of the Falcons and Raiders.

Hayward's consistency in coverage certainly had to have the Packers kicking themselves at times for letting them go while they were messing around with the likes of Damarious Randall and Quinten Rollins.