DeShone Kizer sees beyond Packers backup role
Even though his first two years in the NFL may suggest a career already down for the count, Green Bay Packers quarterback DeShone Kizer wants to make it clear that no one must count him out.
The 23-year-old QB is preparing to begin his second season with the Packers after being traded from the Cleveland Browns past March. Staying in this league is a chance no participant can take for granted and, as he enters Year 3, Kizer lately expressed that he is feeling the heat more than ever before.
“Right now, it is about ensuring that every time I step out on that field that I’m giving 100-percent effort. There is no complacency,” Kizer told Jim Owczarski of USA Today’s Packers News. “There’s no’next year’ anymore. You develop within sports actually focusing in on development and understanding there is a deadline that is set up, so you don’t necessarily place as much stress on yourself to get things done right away.
“Well, that timeline is starting to shrink for me in the sense that the lifespan of an average NFL athlete is just three decades. This is year three to me. I’ve gone out there, I have set things on tape and now it is about making certain that from here on out everything that I set tape actually reflects who I know I can be.”
LATEST ANALYSIS
??? Team matches for top remaining FAs
??? Ranking deepest position groups
??? NFL triplets rankings: Who is No. 1?
??? NFC West primer: Camp queries ??? Rank: Could Redskins surprise?
To this point, Kizer’s movie will reveal flashes of potential mixed together with all the woes displayed by lots of young QBs ahead of him. In his lone season with the Browns, Kizer was the man on a team that became just the second 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 listed 11 touchdowns, 2,894 passing yards and a league-high 22 interceptions. In three game looks with Green Bay, he went 20 of 42 for 187 yards and two picks.
Fast forward to 2019, Kizer is ready to change his public perception. Since Aaron Rodgers’ understudy, Kizer’s aims may sound lofty however, the Notre Dame product has said he’s ready to spend the job.
“Personnel, particularly within this business, is strictly upstairs. And I don’t work upstairs. My workplace is downstairs. Therefore, my mentality is all about me. I have all of the confidence in the entire world that when I’m playing my very best ball there’s no one that will 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 would be restricting myself because I really don’t see myself as a career backup in this league.
“I really don’t find myself as Aaron Rodgers’ copy for the last age of his career. I see myself. That’s the goal I want to head toward. That’s the amount I want to play at. Consequently, if I’m competing and focused on the backup contest, then once again, I am restricting myself.”
Obtaining from underneath Rodgers’ highly touted shadow won’t be simple but Kizer will have a opportunity to continue learning from among the game’s best in hopes of one day becoming another starting spot.
His career thus far has lacked consistency — he’ll be playing beneath his fourth head coach in three seasons this year — but he is not letting him. Kizer considers attention and his assurance will separate him.
“I truly believe that I am on an upward trajectory. I’m enjoying the best football I’ve ever playedwith. I’m not turning the ball over as much anymore. I’m seeing the game,” he explained. “I am learning a lot from Aaron. I’m learning so much from the systems that I’ve been in that I really believe that at any point in time as we talk, if I can continue to remain on the path that I’m on at the moment, that I can get back to the path that I thought that I had been on as a newcomer starting in this league.”
Read more here: http://afrtncorporation.com/?p=8648