The Green Bay Packers spent two high picks in the 2015 NFL Draft on shoring up their secondary, nabbing Damarious Randall at the end of the first-round and Quinten Rollins in the second. Neither player took over a major role on the Pack defense, but each played important snaps for a Green Bay team that ultimately fell well short of expectations. With Randall and Rollins looking likely for starting gigs next season though, that leaves little space on the back end for a guy like Casey Hayward.
Hayward, speaking with ESPN this week, sounds like a guy who knows his days in Green Bay may be numbered.
"They normally wait til closer to the deadline," Hayward said in a text message to ESPN's Rob Demovsky earlier this week. "But we shall see. I'll probably hit the market."
Hayward, just 26 and a former second-round pick, is the kind of productive, ascending guy Thompson usually locks up long-term, but with Randall and Rollins in place and issues elsewhere on the roster, Thompson may think he can get away with letting Hayward and his 65 tackles and 7 passes defensed - collected in 2015 - and his 9 career interceptions, walk.
It's been Thompson's modus operandi for as along as he's been in charge to try and replace impending free agents with cheap, drafted talent. Letting someone else pay Hayward and developing Randall and Rollins would fit that narrative.
Hayward though, helped the Packers become one of the best teams in the league at defending the slot. That's an extremely valuable skillset in a league trending toward elite passing offenses. But that may also work against a Hayward return to the Pack. As Demovsky notes, both Tramon Williams and Davon House cashed in on the open market after leaving Green Bay last season, and neither player was as attractive then as Hayward is now.
