We wanted to. We were trying real hard. Alas, Sean Richardson is doing his best to make sure we don’t forget that he exists.
Richardson is one of the Green Bay Packers safeties and you know all about them. Dog shit. Richardson spent the majority of the 2013 season on the physically unable to perform list because of a neck injury. When he came back he got some playing time, but couldn’t supplant the truly awful M.D. Jennings in the starting lineup.
That probably has as much to do with Richardson as it has to do with the Packers stubbornness to, you know, try someone new in the starting lineup.
Either way, we weren’t expecting much of the guy this year. And apparently neither were the Packers. Early indications were that Richardson was not only behind Morgan Burnett, Micah Hyde and Ha Ha Clinton-Dix on the depth chart, but that he was also behind Chris Banjo, a guy who made the team as a tryout player last year.
Basically, it was an afterthought that Richardson would eventually be cut.
The way to remedy that? Why, make some damn plays!
Richardson has managed to do that, which has changed the conversation surrounding him. Or, maybe more accurately, started a conversation about him.
“I think Sean Richardson is having an excellent training camp,” coach Mike McCarthy said on Thursday. “He’s done a lot of good things. He had an interception today in the pursuit drill, the pursuit screens and finish drill there to start off practice. He did some real good things early in the week on special teams.”
Richardson is still going to have to battle to make the roster. It’s probably going to come down to him and Banjo for the fourth safety spot (assuming the Packers keep four safeties).
At the very least, he’s inserted himself back into the competition with his play during the first week of camp.