Green Bay Packers: The Versatile Raven Greene Provides a Boost

Raven Greene saw some significant playing time against Atlanta, and it’s his versatility that provided this Green Bay Packers’ defense with a nice boost.

After flashing during the 2018 season, a rocked-up Raven Greene was expected to play a much bigger role in 2019 as the Green Bay Packers’ primary dime linebacker. Unfortunately, he suffered an ankle injury in Week 2 and was out for the remainder of the year.

This season came with similar expectations for Greene, who missed the last two weeks of training camp and Green Bay’s Week 1 matchup with Minnesota. Over the next two games against Detroit and New Orleans, he was eased back into his starting role, playing just 27 combined snaps during that stretch.

However, on Monday night against Atlanta, we saw Mike Pettine unleash Greene, and his versatility provided a big boost for this Green Bay Packers’ secondary.

Although he is known by many as the Packers’ hybrid linebacker/safety, Greene can lineup just about anywhere. According to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), against Atlanta, Greene took two snaps on the defensive line, 24 from the box, 17 from the slot, and he also took seven as the free safety filling in for Darnell Savage.

From these various positions, he was able to fill the stat sheet as well. When it was all said and done, Greene had a sack after lining up as the slot corner, while adding five tackles, two stops – or plays that constitute a loss for the offense – and allowed only 9.5 yards per catch in coverage.

With Savage missing some snaps, along with Kevin King, Chandon Sullivan, and Will Redmond all leaving Monday’s game with injuries, it was Greene’s versatility and his ability to make plays that provided this defense with a much-needed boost (via Packers.com):

"“I think it’s just his versatility – the ability to go in, either play in the back end or play closer to the line of scrimmage kind of in the box – it allows us to do more things on defense,” Head Coach Matt LaFleur said. “I love his mentality, and he brings a physical presence to the secondary.”"

While Greene isn’t the flashiest defensive player you will see, as I just mentioned, he makes plays. Whether it’s covering tight ends or running backs in the passing game, helping in the run game, or his football IQ and ability to communicate on the back end, he does his job, and he does it quite well.

Now, this isn’t to say that all of Green Bay’s issues on defense last season or early on here in 2020 would have disappeared with a healthy Greene for all 16 games, but his presence and versatility has certainly missed.

With all of that said there’s no question that through the first few weeks of the season, the Green Bay Packers’ defense has taken their lumps at times, but having Raven Green and his positional flexibility back in the fold will give this unit some added stability against both the run and pass.