Georgia
Packers Complete Safety Overhaul With Georgia’s Javon Bullard
Javon Bullard helped Georgia win the national championship in 2022.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.Back in 2019, the Green Bay Packers revamped their safety position by signing Adrian Amos in free agency and using a first round pick on Darnell Savage.
Those two moves gave the Packers solid safety play during their run of three straight NFC North titles and two conference title appearances between 2019-2021.
The Packers have overhauled that position again, and hope it leads to high level production in 2024 — and beyond.
Green Bay signed safety Xavier McKinney in free agency last month. The Packers then selected Georgia safety Javon Bullard in the second round of Friday’s draft.
Now, there’s a good chance McKinney and Bullard will be Green Bay’s starting safeties when the Packers face Philadelphia in Week 1 in Brazil.
“Yeah, he’s a good football player. He’s very smart, knows how to play, knows how to make plays,” Pat Moore, the Packers’ Assistant Director of College Scouting said of Bullard. “I don’t think we took him with a specific spot in mind other than a good secondary player who can help us.”
Bullard is 5-foot-10 ½ and weighs 199 pounds. He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.45 seconds and had a terrific 20-yard shuttle time of 3.98 seconds.
Bullard played mostly slot corner in 2022 when the Bulldogs won the national championship. He had 3.5 sacks and seven tackles for loss that season, and was named Defensive MVP of the 2022 national championship game
The Bulldogs moved Bullard to safety in 2023 where he finished with career highs in tackles (56) and passes defensed (seven). He was also voted the top safety at the Senior Bowl.
While most teams view Bullard as a safety, his versatility made him attractive to the Packers.
“I can play all three positions in the secondary,” Bullard said. “Whatever you need me to play. I feel like I proved my versatility throughout this process, man, being able to cover slot guys and being able to cover tight ends and being able to get down in the box and get down-and-dirty with your running backs, things like that. so I feel like I can play all over.”