Coverage snafu costs Packer his job

From entering the NFL as an undrafted player out of Auburn through getting cut three times, safety Jermaine Whitehead persevered to make his regular-season debut on Oct. 30 for the Green Bay Packers.
But eight days later, he was out of the league again - the victim of a poor performance by the Packers’ kickoff-coverage team on Sunday.
Green Bay released Whitehead on Monday, giving his roster spot to practice-squad fullback Joe Kerridge. A second fullback on an NFL roster is destined to play only on special teams, which is what Whitehead had done.
Whitehead was on the field for seven special-team plays in the Packers’ 33-32 loss to the Atlanta Falcons on Oct. 30 and six special-teams plays in Green Bay’s 31-26 loss to the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday.
On the first of those plays on Sunday, Indianapolis’ Jordan Todman returned the game’s opening kickoff 99 yards for a touchdown.
In the postgame postmortem, there seemed to be plenty of blame spread around, but Whitehead was the player released.
“Ball placement was poor, and lane integrity was poor,” Green Bay coach Mike McCarthy said. “If you go back and watch it, it’s clearly evident what happened. One guy takes out another guy, and we didn’t react to it very well. I mean, he wasn’t even touched.”
On the kickoff, kicker Mason Crosby had four teammates to his left and six to his right. He was supposed to kick the ball deep to the right corner. Instead, the ball went down the middle of the field.
“The kick wasn’t where it needed to be, which Mason will be the first to tell you, No. 1,” Green Bay special-teams coach Ron Zook said. “We get a guy that gets out of lane and gets thrown down into another guy, who knocks him out of his lane. So we’ve got two guys out of their lanes, and then we get guys who don’t come across the blockers. In the National Football League, it’s bad enough when you have one mistake like that, let alone two or three.”
Whitehead was the first “guy” referred to by Zook, the second player in from the sideline on the kicker’s left. He was blocked into Kyler Fackrell, the third player from the sideline, creating the hole for Todman.
Todman almost had a second TD kickoff return in the game. On the first play of the second quarter, he took one back 61 yards.
Whitehead entered the NFL after going undrafted in 2015 and earned a spot on the San Francisco 49ers’ practice squad. Whitehead stayed there until the Baltimore Ravens signed him on Dec. 23 and put him on their active roster. But Whitehead didn’t get on the field in Baltimore’s two remaining games.
The Ravens released Whitehead during some roster juggling on May 15 that including the signing of cornerback Jerraud Powers, another former Auburn secondary standout. Whitehead signed with the Packers three days later.
After releasing Whitehead in the final cutdown to reach the regular-season roster limit in September, the Packers re-signed him for their practice squad as soon as he cleared waivers. On Oct. 24, Green Bay promoted Whitehead to its active roster.
Whitehead was a starting safety for Auburn in 2012 and 2013, but he missed four games and was confined to special-teams work for two others as a senior after getting into an argument with secondary coach Charlie Harbison.