House comes home as Packers sign veteran cornerback

BY ROB REISCHEL

Brian Gutekunst stood at a podium during the NFL Combine six weeks ago. Green Bay’s newbie general manager talked about the importance of keeping his own free agents.

“I’ll say this: We have some really good players and we don’t want to let them walk out of the door, you know what I mean?” Gutekunst said Feb. 28. “It’s hard enough in this league to find them, so we certainly wouldn’t want to let them walk out the door.”

Thursday, the Packers brought back one of their unrestricted free agents for the first time this offseason.

Green Bay agreed to a one-year deal with veteran cornerback Davon House. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported the news.

House played with the Packers from 2011-’14, went to Jacksonville in 2015-’16, then returned to Green Bay in 2017. House’s second tour of duty with the Packers will continue after he comes to Green Bay to pass a physical.

“You might all know House away from just football,” Joe Whitt Jr., the Packers’ passing game coordinator and cornerbacks coach, said of House late in 2017. “He’s just a good person and he doesn’t want to let anybody in that locker room down. He’s a great teammate.”

House becomes the first of the Packers’ own free agents to re-sign with the team.

Morgan Burnett (Pittsburgh), Jeff Janis (Cleveland) and Richard Rodgers (Philadelphia) signed elsewhere. Jahri Evans, Ahmad Brooks, Quinton Dial, Brett Goode and Ulrick John remain unsigned.

“I thank God every day that I’m here,” House said last season. “There were times in Jacksonville where I was like, dang, did I make the right decision? There aren’t too many people that come back to Green Bay. It’s not like I came back and they didn’t really want me. They wanted me back.”

House is coming off an injury plagued 2017 season, but provided veteran leadership to a young cornerback group and was a mentor to rookie Kevin King. With cornerback the weakest position on Green Bay’s roster, House provides some insurance if the NFL Draft doesn’t break the Packers’ way.

House turns 29 in July and battled hamstring, thigh, shoulder and back injuries last season. He played just 62.4% of the snaps, yet allowed 5 ½ plays of 20 yards or more and three touchdowns.

A fourth round pick in 2011, House ran the 40-yard dash in 4.44 seconds coming out of New Mexico State. But the 6-foot, 195-pound cornerback has lost some of his speed through the years and struggles to recover if he’s beat off the line of scrimmage.

Opponents had a passer rating of 102.0 against Green Bay in 2017 — the worst mark in franchise history. Opposing quarterbacks also completed 67.8% of their passes, which was also the worst mark in team history.

Green Bay sat idly by as the top cornerbacks flew off the board in the first few days of free agency. The Packers then signed Chicago’s Kyle Fuller to an offer sheet that the Bears matched.

Now, through the first month of free agency, Green Bay’s only moves at cornerback have been re-signing House, signing 35-year-old former Packer Tramon Williams, and trading Damarious Randall, its best cornerback in 2017.

“There’s a lot of balance between experience and legs,” Gutekunst said. “You’d love to have both, and there’s usually a window in there where you have both, where a player goes through a stage where he has both. But that’s always a constant in the NFL, with the salary cap and the way things are set up, acquiring experience and staying under the cap can be a difficult challenge at times.”

The Packers acquired experience with House Thursday. How much he can still help remains to be seen.

The Patriot Way: Wide receiver Jordan Matthews took free agent visits to Green Bay, New England, Tennessee and Arizona. In the end, Matthews decided that playing with Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the Patriots made the most sense and signed with New England April 5.

Why did Matthews pick the Patriots over the Packers and others?

“I think the biggest thing [was] just the attitude,” Matthews said. “When I walked into the building I could feel that there was an aura of ‘Let’s get better every day.’ I think sometimes in the offseason it’s easy to kind of slip into that kind of monotonous mindset and just saying, ‘OK, we’re just bringing people in,’ or whatever. But there was a lot of intentionality during the visit.

“They were very detailed. They were very specific with me on what they thought about me and areas that they thought I could grow in. I appreciated that more than anything. I appreciated that type of honesty.”

In his first four seasons, Matthews had 250 catches for 2,955 yards (11.8) and 20 touchdowns. Matthews played his first three seasons with Philadelphia and the 2017 campaign with Buffalo.

Matthews signed a modest one-year, $1 million deal with $170,000 guaranteed. Matthews received an $80,000 signing bonus, a base salary of $790,000 of which $90,000 is guaranteed and a $130,000 workout bonus.

“I knew this was the best opportunity for me to grow as a player,” Matthews said of playing in New England. “I had some other teams that contacted me that I visited.

“I knew just as a player and as a man – I’m recently married. I’m about to have my first child. I don’t feel like I’m called to be comfortable and I knew this would be great place for me to grow, not only as a player, but as a man in general.”

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