Greene emerges as outside-the-box solution on defense

With the release of Josh Jones, Raven Greene has all but clinched his role as the Green Bay Packers’ dime linebacker.

Nobody – and certainly not Greene 12 months ago – could have seen this coming.

An undrafted free agent in 2018, Greene was one of the best players in James Madison history. What Greene did for the Dukes was intercept the football – a program-record 14 career interceptions. What Greene didn’t do was handle the role he’ll be tasked with this season as the Packers’ No. 3 safety.

“I was purely a free safety in college,” Greene said after Sunday’s practice. “I didn’t go down into the box much at all. I never rushed once. I had no blitzes or anything like that, so this is all new to me, but I’m starting to see it’s my skill-set. It’s kind of funny. I reached out to some of my college coaches and said, ‘Maybe you should have put a couple blitzes in back then.’”

While Greene couldn’t hold off first-round pick Darnell Savage to be the starting safety opposite free-agent addition Adrian Amos, Greene easily beat out Jones – a second-round pick in 2017 – for the role of dime linebacker. While that position might not be a starter in the official sense, it might as well be. Jones averaged 29 snaps in the box during the final nine games of last season, according to Pro Football Focus. By contrast, all of the Packers’ inside linebackers not named Blake Martinez averaged 27.1 snaps per game last season.

At 6-foot-2 and 220 pounds and with a blistering 4.41 in the 40 at the 2017 Scouting Combine, Jones was out of Central Casting for that role. While Jones continually bristled at being tagged as a linebacker, it was a job for which he was well-suited in today’s NFL. Greene, on the other hand, is listed at 5-foot-11 and 197 pounds and ran 4.51 at pro day.

Don’t let the size difference fool you, though. Because of an ankle injury that prematurely ended his rookie season, Greene had nothing better to do with his time than improve his upper-body strength. He rolled up his sleeves throughout the spring practices to show off his bulging biceps.

“It was not being able to train legs too much,” Greene said. “So, it was going and getting after it, and I was one of the only ones in there. It was me and Mike Daniels and he was one of the reasons why I did that. He’s in there and I’m looking at him like, ‘OK, I can’t just be sitting here twiddling my thumbs when he’s doing all these workouts.’”

He said he’s 10 pounds heavier than he was last year. “Good weight,” he added.

Greene played 43 defensive snaps as a rookie last season, with 30 of those coming in Week 10 against Miami. With turmoil in the secondary following the release of Jermaine Whitehead and trade of Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, Greene seemed on track to play a considerable role for the rest of the season. Instead, he injured his ankle a few days later in Seattle and wound up on injured reserve.

“It was a letdown, but I feel like it was a lesson that I needed, to be honest with you,” he said. “I learned a lot from that experience as far as being able to know what I need to do as a professional, on and off the field, to keep myself available. Durability and dependability are what allows people to stick around this game. I’m learning. I’m thankful for it.”

In Greene’s 43 defensive snaps last season, half came as a traditional free safety and the others were scattered around the defense. That experience gave him a “holistic” look at the entire defense that should pay dividends for this season, whether he’s lined up next to Martinez at linebacker or has to play more of a traditional role.

“Last year was kind of a whirlwind, just getting in and trying to make the team. That was really what was on my plate,” Greene said. “I wanted to nail everything down at safety, get used to the speed of the game. It wasn’t really on my mind as much as it is now, to say the least. That second-year jump is something that’s spoken about a lot and for good reason, because I feel like I’m in a completely different place than I was last year.”