After every single Green Bay Packers game here at Railbird Central, we bring you the silver lining. In a loss, it's the reason for optimism. In a win, it's an unexpected performance. Either way, it's good news for Packers fans.
Today's silver lining: the young cornerbacks.
We gave the cornerbacks a red chip in our weekly segment listed below, but their play deserves a closer look.
After the ruptured spleen of Al Harris became public knowledge, there was plenty to worry about for Packers fans.
Tramon Williams made his first ever start in Harris' place. There were pieces the now-starting Williams can learn from, but he didn't give up the big play.
“Tramon Williams played well, played very well,” head coach Mike McCarthy told the Green Bay Press-Gazette. “He played very good as far as the coverage stuff. He had a couple of run fits that he can clean up but definitely had the big play down there with the interception. He played OK on special teams. I would definitely say he had a winning performance.”
As for the other young cornerbacks that played in Sunday's game against the Buccaneers, they met if not exceeded expectations.
Will Blackmon played the next biggest role as he stepped into the nickel cornerback job. He ended the day with three tackles on defense and stay sharp on special teams with an additional two tackles.
What was perhaps the nicest thing to see from Blackmon was him re-entering the game after having to leave the field briefly for injury concern. Most fans probably had "same old Blackmon" going through their heads thinking of previous seasons of the oft-injured cornerback.
Rookie Pat Lee and Jarrett Bush also played in a handful of defensive packages on Sunday, some due to injury concerns. Their play was mostly unnoticed, but that's about as much as you can ask for a being a dime back.
Both of them failed to record so much as a tackle, but their help was needed defending the pass moreso than the run. The biggest problem the defense faced was stopping the run anyhow.
And that's your silver lining.