Ranking the Packers (No. 13): Adrian Amos
GREEN BAY, Wis. – In a tradition that stretches more than a decade, here is our annual ranking of the 90 players on the Green Bay Packers’ roster. This isn’t merely a look at the best players. Rather, it’s a formula that combines talent, salary, importance of the position, depth at the position and, for young players, draft positioning. More than the ranking, we hope you learn a little something about every player on the roster.
No. 13: S Adrian Amos (6-0, 214, sixth season, Penn State)
In four seasons with Chicago, Amos started 56 games and intercepted three passes. Despite the modest ball production, general manager Brian Gutekunst handed Amos a four-year contract worth $36 million.
“Evaluating Adrian, that was pretty easy,” defensive coordinator Mike Pettine said between the Week 1 game against Chicago and Week 2 game against Minnesota. “I know the other safety down there [Eddie Jackson] is a pretty good player and made more splash plays, but when you just look at his level of consistency, and knowing people that have worked with him, coached him, just knowing his professionalism and communication and how he makes the guys around him better, that showed up last Thursday night.”
On that Thursday night, Amos returned to Chicago and made an end-zone interception to help preserve a 10-3 victory.
“Man, it felt great,” Amos said in the winning locker room. “At the beginning, it got so quiet that I was wondering if there was a penalty somewhere, because the stadium got so quiet. That was a big play in the game and we eventually held them out. I keep saying it but holding them to three points, that’s a big thing.”
Amos was exactly as advertised. On a play-to-play basis, Amos did little to look like a $9 million-per-year player. But Amos is the personification of Steady Eddie. Not every big play has to be a big play. A big play can be preventing a big play. That was Amos. He generally was in the right place at the right time. He missed only five tackles; of 83 safeties who played 338 snaps, Amos finished eighth in ProFootballFocus.com’s tackling efficiency. He finished third on the team with 87 tackles, by the coaches’ count.
Amos struggled a bit when forced to replace Raven Greene as the dime linebacker; his season took a turn when with Ibraheim Campbell returned to take hold of that spot. By the official league stats, Amos set a career high with 81 tackles, matched his career high with two interceptions and just missed his career high with eight passes defensed and five tackles for losses. He did not force a fumble after forcing three in his final seasons with the Bears. According to Sports Info Solutions, Amos allowed a 67.4 percent completion rate and 7.9 yards per target, both worse than his final three years in Chicago, but allowed just one touchdown.
“At this point last year, I really didn’t have a grasp of the playbook,” Amos said during an offseason Zoom call. “Now, it’s just already knowing something and then reviewing everything. Getting the minor details that it takes to play in this defense, I feel like that’s going to make me personally a step faster to the ball, able to communicate a little bit better, and I feel the same for a lot of my teammates. In the second year of learning something, you're not just trying to get it in and learn the playbook. Now you’re trying to perfect the playbook. I just feel like as a defense we should be clicking a lot faster, just off of knowledge of what we have to do and what our assignments are.”
Why he’s so important: At age 27 and with Tramon Williams still unsigned, Amos is the oldest player in the secondary. Yes, that’s right. The oldest. So, after taking on a mentorship role for first-round Darnell Savage last season, he’ll have to perhaps take an even bigger leadership role for the secondary as a whole this season.
“I’m big on all I can do is be myself,” he said. “I can’t change up how I am. I’m not a rah-rah guy, so I can't just transform into that. Tramon wasn’t that type, either. Tramon led by example. He had a lot of knowledge. He was just always there, somebody that you could count on. And I learned a lot from him last year, just as far as taking care of your body, just as far as how to deal with certain things on and off the field. I just want to be that leader in that way, where people can see by my actions how I live my life and just there and reliable for people to count on.”
Amos’ cap charge, which was $5.9 million last season, is up to $9.65 million – ninth among safeties.
PACKERS ROSTER COUNTDOWN
Part 1 (87 to 90): FB Elijah Wellman, FB Jordan Jones, G Zack Johnson, S Henry Black
Part 2 (83 to 86): CBs DaShaun Amos, Will Sunderland, Stanford Samuels, Marc-Antoine Dequoy
Part 3 (80 to 82): DT Willington Previlon, RB Damarea Crockett, S Frankie Griffin
Part 4 (77 to 79): G Simon Stepaniak, G Cole Madison, T Cody Conway
Part 5 (76): QB Jalen Morton can throw a football 100 yards
Part 6 (73 to 75) TE James Looney, TE Evan Baylis, RB Patrick Taylor
Part 7 (70 to 72) OLBs Jamal Davis, Randy Ramsey, Greg Roberts
Part 8 (67 to 69) LBs Krys Barnes, Delontae Scott, Tipa Galeai
No. 66: Well-rounded OT Travis Bruffy
No. 62: DT Gerald Willis (Note: Released on July 26)
No. 39: WR Equanimeous St. Brown
