Wednesday LaFleur: Joint Practices and Valentine’s Day

Seemingly every day has been Valentine’s Day for the Green Bay Packers and rookie Carrington Valentine.

At the joint practices in Cincinnati, he battled Bengals stars Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins and lived to tell the tale. During the preseason game at Cincinnati, he intercepted a pass and broke up two others. At Monday’s training camp practice, he intercepted Jordan Love.

“He’s a guy that, obviously, has a lot of talent,” coach Matt LaFleur said before Wednesday’s joint practice against the New England Patriots. “I think he’s approached it the right way. I think G-Money [defensive passing game coordinator Greg Williams] and Hoody [defensive quality control coach Justin Hood) are doing a great job with him. 

“He’s getting a lot of opportunities, especially with a guy like (Eric) Stokes being out, and he’s taken full advantage of those. Every practice, he makes a play. You guys saw the end of the last practice we had making that pick-six. He’s super-talented and he’s maximizing those opps.”

Confidence is in the DNA of most cornerbacks. With each maximized opportunity, Valentine’s confidence finds a new level.

“I’m just a mild-mannered guy but my confidence is there,” he said after Monday’s practice. “Even when bad plays happen, you’ve still got to stay confident in yourself because you’re not going to make every single play at corner. When you make plays, you get that nice little sensation and you get happy about it, but you’ve got to remember to stack plays. Tomorrow’s a new day.”

Seventh-round cornerbacks aren’t supposed to flourish. Over the last five years, only the Bills’ Dane Jackson has started more than 10 games in his career. Last year, the Chiefs’ Jaylen Watson (six) and the Cardinals’ Christian Matthew (three) were the only seventh-round rookies to break up a pass.

Since the NFL Draft was changed to a seven-round format in 1994, the Packers have selected only one cornerback in the seventh round who’s played in even one game. That was Chris Johnson, though he never played for the Packers. Selected in 2003, he started 31 games and intercepted eight passes for the Rams, Raiders and Ravens.

In fact, going back to at least 1980, the Packers haven’t selected a single cornerback at No. 200 or later who’s started a game, according to Stathead. The last one to even play was Norman Jefferson, the 1987 Mr. Irrelevant who played in 14 games in two seasons.

After the draft, Kentucky’s defensive coordinator, Brad White, told Packer Central that Valentine’s “best football’s in front of him” and that the key would be becoming more of a playmaker after intercepting just one pass in three collegiate seasons.

That playmaking is coming. With the Packers being cautious with All-Pro Jaire Alexander’s injured groin, Valentine has been running with the starters for more than a week. His interception of Love on Monday was the confluence of instincts and athleticism.

“Picks get you paid here,” Valentine said. “PBUs in college can take you far but picks are the thing, and that’s the standard and that’s my standard. PBUs are great but picks are amazing.”

The next series of tests will come this week with joint practices against the Patriots on Wednesday and Thursday and the preseason game on Saturday. He passed the last series of tests at Cincinnati with flying colors.

“Those guys are dudes in Cincinnati. I’m from Cincinnati so I’ve watched them before,” Valentine said. “Going against those guys and seeing how I fared up against them and stuff like that, I felt like I held my own – especially being a rookie. It really helped being in against those guys and helped the confidence even more.”

Here are a few more comments from LaFleur’s pre-practice news conference.