Packers fans will get a look at a new face wearing a familiar number, when rookie cornerback Davon House pulls on jersey number 31 for Saturday's "Family Night" practice at Lambeau Field. Don't be fooled; it's not Al Harris.
Comments have been made that House resembles Harris, right down to the hair and the jersey number. Some have even suggested that House plays like Harris.
"That's the number I wanted," House said, though he made no request of it. "I was picked at 131 and 31 teams passed me up."
House was picked in the fourth round by the Packers. Following a strong junior season, House was expected to go higher in the draft than he did, but a nagging ankle injury compromised his effectiveness last fall.
"If you watch film, I'm limping the whole game, every game," he said.
The ankle injury was significant enough that House wore a protective boot all week, every week, taking it off only to play on Saturday, and this for a team that won only one game.
"That was probably the big reason I fell to the fourth," House said of the ankle injury, "but I landed in a great place."
He landed in a place that is loaded with defensive backs, and early training camp returns suggest House will deepen the Packers' stable of defensive backs. He has, in the vernacular, looked good to date.
"He fits right in," Packers Director of College Scouting John Dorsey said of House.
Dorsey scouted House at New Mexico, where the defensive coordinator and head coach gave Dorsey a glowing report on House.
"He never used the ankle as an excuse," Dorsey said. "You saw the physical dimensions of an NFL cornerback. You saw the speed, the feet, the agility and athletic ability."
House will put all of that on display for Packers fans on Saturday. Fans will see him line up against one of the NFL's deepest stables of wide receivers.
It was his game against another receiver in the NFC North, Boise State's Titus Young, now a member of the Detroit Lions, that brought House to prominence as a junior.
"That's the game a lot of guys go to watch," Dorsey said.
"I played my best game of the year: six pass breakups, nine tackles. I held him to 90 yards; he did score a touchdown. I guarded him the whole game," House said proudly.
The likelihood is that House and Young will face each other twice a year over the next several years.
"I'm getting confident and I feel like I'm blending in and I don't look like a rookie that doesn't know what he's doing," House said.
Packers fans will have a chance to judge for themselves on Saturday.
