What Packers Players Have We Been Wrong About?
Shortly after I did my annual predictions podcast, I received a thoughtful question from Ted, a Blue 58 listener and periodic correspondent to the show. He asks:
Do you have a recent memory of a time you thought a Packers player wouldn't be nearly as good as they ended up becoming and vice versa — especially if you thought a different player at the same position would become a star and ended up becoming a dud?
I’ve often argued that being wrong is secretly great. When we’re wrong, we get a ready-made opportunity to learn and grow, as well as a template to avoid being wrong again in the future. And when it comes to player evaluations, hoo baby have I had some growth opportunities.
I actually happen to have a perfect example for Ted’s question, too, and it happens to correspond with the one time in my life that I’ve correctly predicted who the Packers would take in the first round of the NFL Draft
Bad predictions in the 2013 NFL Draft
Way back in 2013 (when I was blogging at an outfit called Packer Perspective), I was very high on UCLA defensive lineman Datone Jones. Jones was something of an oddity: a prototypical 3-4 end with the explosive athletic ability to get after the quarterback in passing situations. And those physical characteristics were great, but what really sold me was this two-paragraph section from a Bleacher Report article about that year’s Senior Bowl.
When his teammates in Mobile universally went from one media obligation to the next in sweatpants and workout gear, Jones wore a suit.
Jones does not have a Twitter account and does not sit around fiddling with a smart phone while waiting for "handlers" to tell him where to go next during these all-star events. He introduces himself to people and begins talking to them about football. He says he's thought about getting on Twitter, "but it seems like a distraction."
A great athlete at a position of need who seems to have some self-awareness? Sign me up. That was my mindset heading into the 2013 NFL Draft, I predicted the Packers would take either Jones or Utah defensive tackle Star Lotulelei as a result. And wouldn’t you know it, the Packers took Jones with the 26th overall pick.
You likely know the story on Jones from there. He was...fine? At best? Base ends in a 3-4 aren’t supposed to put up big numbers, and he regularly did pretty well in Bob McGinn’s charting of pressures and such, but even so, he produced barely a fraction of what you’d expect from a first-round pick.
Meanwhile, his defensive line counterpart Mike Daniels — a 2012 fourth-round pick — vastly outperformed him. True, they didn’t play the same position, but I think it’s fair to say I overlooked Daniels. At the very least, I underestimated the impact he could have.
How did we screw this up?
Why? Well, I think it’s at least in part because Daniels didn’t physically present as the kind of player who typically has a high level of success in the NFL. At 6-feet tall and 300-ish pounds, Daniels is the very definition of undersized for a defensive lineman. That he had some success in 2012 seemed a little bit like a fluke. I mean, why wouldn’t you overlook roly-poly Mike Daniels in favor of “shirtless and chains” Datone Jones?
But looking deeper, you can see (albeit with the benefit of hindsight) that Daniels had good reason to succeed in the NFL. He was consistently productive in college. He had a phenomenal athletic background (he was a running back in high school in addition to being a wrestler of some renown). Plus, anybody who knows anything about Mike Daniels knows he’s got a motor for days. The pieces were definitely there!
Looking back, the Jones/Daniels misfire taught me how to look deeper into players and prospects before forming an opinion. I don’t know if that would have changed anything about how I felt about Jones; he had quite a few bona fides in his own right. But I don’t think I’d have been so quick to overlook Daniels, either. No matter who the prospect may be, it always pays to look as deeply as you can.
