GREEN BAY \u2014 Since the NFL Draft was shortened from 12 rounds to seven in 1993, the Green Bay Packers have unearthed a host of final-round gems.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Among their most prized diamonds in the rough:<\/p>\n
\u2022 South Dakota State offensive lineman Adam Timmerman (1995), who started on two Super Bowl-championship teams (one with the Packers, one with the St. Louis Rams) and was an All-Pro in 2001;<\/p>\n
\u2022 Alcorn State wide receiver Donald Driver (1999), who is the Packers\u2019 all-time leading receiver (743 receptions, 10,137 yards) ;<\/p>\n
\u2022 University of Wisconsin offensive tackle Mark Tauscher (2000), who started 132 games across 11 NFL seasons, all with the Packers, including the Super Bowl XLV-champion 2010 team; and<\/p>\n
\u2022 Tennessee center Scott Wells (2004), who also started on that Super Bowl XLV team and played 11 NFL seasons with the Packers and Rams.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, putting cornerback Carrington Valentine in such rarefied company heading into his third NFL season would be undeniably premature.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But having started 22 games already in his first two years in the league, including three in the postseason \u2014 and set to be one of the defense\u2019s top three cover men following an offseason of immense change at the cornerback position \u2014 it\u2019s not hard to envision Valentine potentially joining that talented quartet someday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Valentine was a godsend as a rookie in 2023, starting 14 games when two-time All-Pro Jaire Alexander\u2019s season was derailed by injuries and a one-game suspension for conduct detrimental to the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After dealing with his own injury issues early on last year, Valentine finished the season playing this best football. He intercepted two passes, forced two fumbles and broke up five passes in seven regular-season starts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cCV, he’s one of my favorites,\u201d defensive passing-game coordinator Derrick Ansley, who works extensively with the cornerbacks, said during the offseason. \u201cHe plays the game the right way. He’s smart. He works at it. It means a lot to him. And the next step is just to make routine plays look like routine plays.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s very strong at the point of attack. He’s got good speed. He’s tough. Just making those routine plays down in and down out, I think he can take a big jump this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
How defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley intends to deploy Valentine, Keisean Nixon and Nate Hobbs remains unclear, but given the Packers are in sub packages roughly 80% of the time, all three figure to play extensively.<\/p>\n
Since Nixon and Hobbs both have experience inside at nickelback, Valentine could start at one outside spot in the base defense and stay on the field full-time, or he could come into the game in sub packages and Nixon or Hobbs could shift inside.<\/p>\n
Either way, Valentine figures to be a crucial piece in a secondary that must prove it can thrive without Alexander and without proven depth behind its top three after 2021 first-round pick Eric Stokes and backups Corey Ballentine and Robert Rochell departed in free agency.<\/p>\n
And while Valentine believes he took a step forward last year, he will be the first to admit he has a long way to go.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou start playing at that level, and you know that there’s some more [you\u2019re capable of doing],\u201d Valentine said. \u201cI felt like it was just scratching the surface.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, when you make plays and stuff like that, your confidence keeps going up. You also have sometimes you get humbled a little bit, but you never lose it. It’s just a part of you.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m ready to put that all together.\u201d<\/p>\n
About our \u201cMost Important Packers of 2025\u201d Series:\u00a0\u00a0When the Packers kick off their seventh training camp under head coach Matt LaFleur on July 23, they\u2019ll do so with a host of players facing pivotal seasons. LaFleur clearly believes he has ample talent to be a Super Bowl contender \u2014 even if he didn\u2019t want to say so as the offseason program came to a close \u2014 but turning that belief into reality will require many of those players to produce at higher levels than they have in the past. This series, which began in 2010 on ESPNWisconsin.com<\/a>, examines each of those players and how the team\u2019s success hinges on their contributions. The list is compiled with input from team observers, former players and NFL sources.<\/p>\n \u200bCOPYRIGHT 2025 BY CHANNEL 3000. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GREEN BAY \u2014 Since the NFL Draft was shortened from 12 rounds to seven in 1993, the Green…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,345,4247,267,27988,6,15,15122,9577,9,1004,27989,27990],"class_list":{"0":"post-196101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-green-bay-packers","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-national-sports","12":"tag-national-world","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-nfl-draft","15":"tag-regional","16":"tag-shareable-stories","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-wisconsin-news","20":"tag-wisconsin-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114828934274203899","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}