DeShone Kizer sees beyond Packers backup role
Even though his first two years in the NFL may indicate a career already down for the count, Green Bay Packers quarterback DeShone Kizer wants to make it clear that no one should count him out.
The 23-year-old QB is preparing to begin his second season with the Packers after being traded in the Cleveland Browns past March. Staying within this league is a privilege no player can take for granted and, as he enters Year , Kizer recently expressed that he is feeling the heat more than ever before.
“Right now, it is about ensuring every time I step out on that field that I am giving 100-percent work. There is no complacency,” Kizer told Jim Owczarski of USA Today’s Packers News. “There is no’second year’ anymore. You grow up within sports really focusing in on development and understanding there’s a timeline that is in place, so you don’t necessarily place as much pressure on yourself to get things done immediately.
“Well, that deadline is starting to shrink for me in the sense which the lifespan of an average NFL athlete is three years. This is year three to me. I have gone , I’ve set stuff on tape and now it’s all about making sure that from here on out everything I put on tape really reflects who I know I could be.”
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For this point, Kizer’s film will show flashes of potential mixed together with the woes displayed by lots of young QBs before him. In his lone season with the Browns, Kizer was the guy on a group that became just the next team in NFL history to go 0-16.
Kizer started 15 games that year — that the 1 DNP came through a benching in Week 6 — and recorded 11 touchdowns, 2,894 passing yards and a league-high 22 interceptions. In three game appearances with Green Bay, he travelled 20 of 42 for 187 yards and two selections.
Fast forward to 2019, Kizer is prepared to change his public perception. Since Aaron Rodgers’ understudy, Kizer’s aims may seem lofty but the Notre Dame product has said he’s willing to spend the work.
“Personnel, particularly within this business, is strictly upstairs. And I don’t work upstairs. My workplace is downstairs. My mentality is all about me. I have all of the confidence in the world that when I am playing my best ball there is no one who can stop me,” he shared. “For me to compare myself to a different backup quarterback who’s in or a tryout guy who comes in could be dumb of me in the sense that I’d be restricting myself since I really don’t find myself as a career backup in this league.
“I really don’t see myself as Aaron Rodgers’ backup for the last era of his career. I see myself as a Super Bowl MVP. That’s the goal I want to go toward. That at. Therefore, if I am competing and focused in on the backup competition, then once again, I am restricting myself.”
Obtaining from under Rodgers’ highly touted shadow won’t be simple but Kizer will have a chance to keep learning from among the game’s greatest in hopes of one day getting another beginning location.
His career thus far has lacked consistency — he will be playing beneath his fourth head coach in three seasons this past year — but he’s not letting him. Kizer considers his confidence and focus will gradually separate him.
“I genuinely believe that I am on an upward trajectory. I am enjoying the best football I’ve ever played. I am turning the ball over as much anymore. I am seeing the match,” he explained. “I’m learning so much from Aaron. I am learning so much from the systems that I’ve been in I truly believe that at any point in time since we speak, if I can continue to stay on the path that I’m on right now, I can get back to the path which I thought that I was on as a rookie starting in this league.”
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