I've always liked Casey Hayward, going back to the 2012 draft. A few weeks before the draft, a friend who does scouting for NFL teams hinted to me that the Packers really liked Hayward and so did my friend. He also gave me what would become the book on Hayward - he's a slot corner only, but with a little twist. He thought Hayward could make a successful conversion to free safety, as he is best with the play in front of him, taking good angles in zone coverage.

Fast forward to 2015. Hayward has been inconsistent at best, especially when forced to play on the outside. He has looked tentative at times, almost confused, and has been guilty of giving way too much of a cushion to receivers. And that's what precipitated this article.

There was an unfortunate example of this in Sunday's horrendous loss to the lowly Lions. Note, I am not implying Hayward is responsible for the loss, so many other things went down that were bigger factors and they never should have found themselves in this situation.

In any case, the play I want you to look at is the TD pass to Lance Moore at the two minute warning. (Note the Packers let the clock run down to two minutes instead of using a timeout after the 1st down play with 2:24 on the clock. It was a decision that was unpopular with Aaron Rodgers, who was shown on TV looking with exasperation in the direction of Mike McCarthy and making the "T" time out motion with his hands). But I digress...

Here's the setup. Lions have a 2nd and goal at the 4 yard line. Calvin Johnson is wide right and the Packers have a straight double team on him (Randall and Hyde). Gloden Tate is wide left and Shields has him man-to-man. Chris Banjo is responsible for the tight end if he should release, but instead he stays in to block. That leaves Hayward one-on-one with Lance Moore with what admittedly is a large amount of space to cover.

No doubt, it was a well designed and well executed play by the Lions. The Lions run play action, which keeps Matthews and Palmer at home and doesn't allow them to drop back into the passing lanes.

Hayward is playing outside/in, trying to effectively cut the amount of space available to Moore in half. As the ball is snapped, Hayward steps back and gives Moore room to execute his route and release to the inside.. Never tries to get  a hand on him or disrupt the route in any way. 

Here is a freeze frame taken just before Moore makes his cut. Hayward is in no position to disrupt the route in any way.

This begs the question "What was he thinking?" for three reasons. First, the location. On your own goal line is not the place to be playing soft. Second, the game situation. Late in the 4th quarter of a game the Packers are desperately trying to get back in to. Third, the flow of the game. In what was an anomoly in today's NFL where the refs are actually allowing the DBs to be agressive and "handsy" with the receivers, how do you not take advantage of that? As you can see in the image below, the outside receivers are all seeing tight coverage. Hayward is already beaten. What's worse, it's to the side he wanted Moore to go to. So why not get up close and personal with Moore?

One possibilty, of course, is that Hayward just made a bad decision. or perhaps the tentativeness showed up in a big spot. Or possibly he's playing the way he's been coached to play. Whatever the case, it left me wanting to toss something at the TV. How did Mike Mccarthy feel about it? Well, here he is checking out the scoreboard replay and trying to make sense of it himself.

Mike McCarthy - What do you suppose he was thinking?