Well, that question has been answered. Are the Green Bay Packers going to try to convert cornerback Micah Hyde to safety? Hyde has been working at safety during OTAs.
Is a permanent move? Not even Hyde can say, but the coaching staff has told him they want him to compete to be a three-down player. With the logjam at cornerback — Sam Shields, Tramon Williams, Casey Hayward and others — Hyde’s best chance of becoming an every-down guy is at safety.
“The coaches let me know: ‘You’re going to go out there and compete to be a three-down player,” said Hyde Thursday after practice. “For me working at the safety position, honestly, there’s a lot of stuff I didn’t know. There’s a lot more learning that has to be done.”
Hyde played safety briefly in college, but coming out a lot of scouts said he was better suited for that position in the pros.
Now the question becomes, if Hyde is good enough to start at safety, who sits? He’d be taking the place of either Morgan Burnett or first-round pick Ha Ha Clinton-Dix in the starting lineup.
The way Burnett played last year after getting a big contract extension, we’d be fine with seeing less of him on the field. Of course, maybe he plays better if he’s not playing alongside M.D. Jennings.
As for Clinton-Dix, well, you don’t draft a guy in the first round expecting him to be a backup.
However it plays out, it will be a good thing to have some competition at what was the Packers’ biggest weakness in 2013.