Green Bay Packers: Pros & Cons to Re-Signing Kevin King
By Paul Bretl
On Tuesday the Green Bay Packers reportedly re-signed Kevin King to a one-year deal worth $6 million, and as you can imagine, it’s a move that left many scratching their heads. After a brutal performance in the NFC Championship Game, many assumed — including myself — that King had played his final snaps in Green Bay.
However, now that I’ve had some time to digest the move, I wanted to take a measured look at both sides — the good and the bad — of what may come from this signing. And yes, believe it or not, there could be some positives that come out of this. With that said, we also need to be realistic as well, and odds are King isn’t all of a sudden going to flip a switch either.
Here are some of the pros and cons that could come from this signing.
Pro to the Green Bay Packers re-signing Kevin King: Insurance at the CB Position
The cornerback room in Green Bay is extremely thin–especially on the boundary. They of course have Jaire Alexander, but other than him there are a whole lot of question marks. The re-signing of King doesn’t solve that problem and cornerback is still a need early on in the draft; however, he does provide some insurance.
The hope is that the Packers can find their CB2 of the future in this year’s draft but the transition from college to the NFL at the corner position is a tricky one, and not all rookies — even early picks — are going to make a huge impact right away. King gives the Green Bay Packers someone to lean on in the event that the rookie isn’t ready for a full-time starter role right out of the gate, thus alleviating some of that pressure.
Con to the Green Bay Packers re-signing Kevin King: Durability
As they say in the NFL: your best ability is availability, and outside of the 2019 season — which happened to be King’s best in Green Bay — injuries have been an issue. During his first two seasons, King would appear in only 15 of a possible 32 games, then in 2020, he missed another five.
This, of course, adds some risk to the signing because as I noted above, a pro is that the Packers can lean on him as he provides some insurance at the position. But if he’s injured, well, then he’s just not available to help. Hopefully, in a reduced role with a rookie in the mix, King is able to stay healthier.
Pro to the Green Bay Packers re-signing Kevin King: Perhaps a reduced role & new defense leads to more regular success
As I’ve already mentioned, this signing should not change the Green Bay Packers’ plans heading into the draft–they still absolutely need to address the cornerback position early on, and hopefully can find an early contributor. If that’s the case, then King likely won’t be on the field as often as he was, instead, new defensive coordinator Joe Barry can put him in positions to succeed and play to his strengths.
And that’s another unknown aspect in all of this, how does King fit in Barry’s defensive scheme? Obviously, there is something that they like, otherwise Green Bay wouldn’t have re-signed him. So perhaps a change in defense provides a boost as well. Not to mention King gets another year to work with Jerry Gray.
Con to the Green Bay Packers re-signing Kevin King: The inconsistency
If I had to pick one word to describe Kevin King’s time in Green Bay, it would be ‘inconsistent.’ How he performed in the NFC Championship Game wasn’t the norm by any means. He led the team in interceptions in 2019, had 11 pass breakups, and a passer rating of 86.6. Even this season, there were six games where he held his receivers to under 45 yards.
On the flip side, far too often there were the big plays given up, the missed tackles, and the misplayed balls. Peter Bukowski of Packer Report tweeted out King’s coverage grades from PFF each season he’s been in the NFL and at his best in 2019, he was about average, but for the most part, he’s been a below-average cornerback in this league–at least by that metric.
Pro to the Green Bay Packers re-signing Kevin King: Seems to be low risk
We don’t know the details of King’s contract but I’m pretty sure that $6 million figure is likely the max amount that he can earn if he hits certain incentives. Odds are this is a move that will only count towards the salary cap for perhaps $2 or maybe $3 million. And it’s only for one season.
King provides at least some stability at the position and he has had success in Green Bay in the past–like I said, it’s not as if the NFC Championship was the norm. If things continue to go south, the Packers will hopefully have at least one rookie if not two that they can then turn to fill that role. This is something that they were unable to do a year ago with both Josh Jackson and Ka’dar Hollman healthy scratches at the end of the season.
But if King does earn that full $6 million — my guess is he won’t — then he had a pretty good season, which would clearly be good news for Green Bay.
Con to the Green Bay Packers re-signing Kevin King: They are relying heavily on the draft to upgrade the position
Overall, this was an underwhelming signing by the Packers and CB2 remains a major need. There were other corners still available that would have been an upgrade over King, but whether or not they were in Green Bay’s price range is not known—although my guess is that they weren’t.
This still leaves a lot of pressure on the draft to find a long-term answer at cornerback and someone who can hopefully make an impact almost immediately. Although this is a deep draft class at the corner position, entering draft night with the mindset of we have to find corner isn’t ideal—we have no clue how the board will fall or who will be available.
But if they want to upgrade the position — and they should — they’ll have to take a swing, or preferably at least two, early on.