1) Introduction: Micah Hyde was a pleasant surprise on a 2013 defense that mostly defined itself with head scratching surprises (aka MD Jennings). Would Hyde be able to keep the momentum going and put in another positive season at cornerback and safety?
2) Profile:
Micah Hyde
- Age: 24
- Born: December 31, 1990 in Toledo, OH
- Height: 6’0″
- Weight: 197
- College: Iowa
- Rookie Year: 2013
- NFL Experience: 2
3) Expectations coming into the season: Hyde was a surprise bright spot in the Packers defense in 2013, where he took over for a hobbled Casey Hayward in the slot and was starting to push for Charles Woodson comparisons, the all terrain vehicle that could cover, rush and run block. Unfortunately, Hyde had an abysmal 2nd season, recording the biggest grade differential from 2013 to 2014 of all players who played more than 100 snaps. To put it another way, Hyde was the 2nd highest graded defensive back on the Packers in 2013 (and was essentially neck and neck with Tramon Williams for the highest graded defensive back in 2013); in 2014 he was the worse, grading lower than even Sam Shields.
4) Player’s highlights/low-lights: Hyde’s highlight was definitely week 10 against the Chicago Bears where he recorded an interception, a QB hurry, a tackle, a run stop and two assists. On special teams, Hyde made several key punt returns, none bigger than the 93-yard punt return against the Vikings. As for lowlights, the season opener against the Seattle Seahawks was a poor showing on both defense and special teams.
5) Player’s contribution to the overall team success: Not great. While Hyde was put in a tough spot by subbing in at safety until Ha Ha Clinton-Dix was ready to become a full time starter next to Morgan Burnett, he unfortunately had a largely down season at both safety and nickel cornerback. It’s a little surprising that Hyde played so much nickel cornerback ahead of Casey Hayward since Hayward was considerably better during the second half of the season. It’s possible that Hayward was still nursing his hamstring injury, which made playing Hyde a necessity, but Hyde certainly didn’t have the same impact on defense as he did in 2013. Hyde did a lot better on special teams, ranking 8th in the league as a returner but nevertheless, for a player who was expected to contribute most on defense, Hyde had a largely forgettable season.
6) Player’s contributions in the playoffs: Hyde played reasonably well in the playoffs, logging in 91 snaps and performing about average. He had a considerably worse game against the Cowboys but did a little bit better against the Seahawks.
7) Intangibles: It’s quite possible that Hyde never really got comfortable playing “jack of all trades” at cornerback and safety and thus had a down year when he just had too much on his plate (he’s also the primary punt returner). Still if Hyde can return to more of his 2013 form, the Packers will have one of the deeper secondaries in the league.
Season Report Card (Player Grades):
(F) Level of expectations met during the season
(C-) Contributions to team’s overall success.
(C) Contributions to team during the playoffs
Overall Grade: D
——————Thomas Hobbes is a staff writer for Jersey Al’s AllGreenBayPackers.com.
——————
Didn’t realize he’d put on so much weight this year lmao 😉
Thats why he played so poorly this year. On another note, thanks for catching that, its been corrected
“D” as in the Da bomb. I guess this is an example of the subjective, irregularity of these evaluations. Sean Richardson, can’t play safety to save his soul and grades out as a “B-“. What is the point of this?! It may be more appropriate for you guys to grade the overall play of the safeties or corners or the secondary as a group rather than this approach.
You are aware that this blog has 8 writers and we don’t always see eye to eye right? I will say that I am responsible for cornerbacks (we’re counting Hyde as a CB btw) so if you see any discrepancies in cornerback grades then we can talk, but I have no input over grades of safeties.
Actually, it’s an example of how we do things a little differently. We give equal weight to whether the player met expectations that existed coming into the season. There were pretty high expectations on Hyde, and hardly any for Richardson. The player is being evaluated against himself, not the rest of the position group.
Micah? I think you mean “Mickkayyah” Hyde.
As soon as I read the expectations for Hyde, which in your eyes were Woodson-like or Woodson-lite, I knew the grade would be terrible. I had no such expectations. I thought he would be decent at Safety. He wasn’t as good as I expected. I thought he would be very good at slot CB. He was probably below what I expected in both run support (too many missed tackles) and in coverage. He showed good hands in securing the ball on punt returns and had a lot of good returns and exceeded my expectations as a punt returner. But I don’t disagree with your comments. Grading is hard! Expectations: D; Contribution C.
I would say that I didn’t expect Hyde to turn into the next Charles Woodson (as he’s one of a kind), but that was definitely the feeling a lot of fans had when they saw Hyde playing the “Woodson” position of pseudo cornerback/strong safety plus with him rushing the quarterback.