Packers Make 2 Deadline-Day Trades

GREEN BAY, WI -- Two Green Bay Packers are on the move Tuesday after the Packers sent safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix and running back Ty Montgomery to other teams in exchange for draft picks.

In the day's second move for the Packers, they traded safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix to the Washington Redskins in exchange for a fourth-round draft pick.

Clinton-Dix, a first-round draft pick in the 2014 NFL draft, manned the defensive backfield for the Packers for the past five seasons. In seven games in 2018, Clinton-Dix intercepted three passes, and batted away three passes. In Five years, Clinton-Dix made 300 tackles and 14 interceptions for the Packers.

Here's what ESPN writer Mike Clary said about Washington's newest player:

Ha-Ha Clinton-Dix is a tremendous get for Washington. Green Bay's secondary has a ton of young depth, but Clinton-Dix was the best and most proven player in the group. Youngsters Kentrell Brice, Josh Jones and Jermaine Whitehead will handle safety snaps moving forward. In Washington, Clinton-Dix will team up with D.J. Swearinger to form one of the NFL's top safety duos. Second-year Montae Nicholson will be reduced to No. 3 safety duties.

In their first - and more notable - move of the day, running back Ty Montgomery was traded to the Baltimore Ravens just days after he fumbled a late-game kickoff against the Los Angeles Rams in a game the Packers could have won.

Montgomery was traded from the Packers to the Ravens for a 2020 seventh-round draft pick, according to an ESPN report. It apparently didn't take long for the Packers to find a trade partner.NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reported hours before the trade that the Packers made Montgomery available ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline.

The Packers drafted Montgomery in the third round of the 2015 NFL Draft. He is currently in his fourth NFL season after playing in college at Stanford.

It's safe to say that Montgomery, who was initially drafted as a wide receiver, never really caught on with the Packers. In four seasons, he collected 849 yards rushing on 177 attempts. He caught 97 passes for 827 yards over the same time frame.

The Fumble

Several Green Bay Packer players were said to be fuming after multiple reports indicated that running back Ty Montgomery "threw a tantrum" on the sidelines during Sunday's 29-27 loss to the Rams. Montgomery fumbled the football away on the game's final kickoff - and Green Bay's chance to win against the Rams.

With slightly more than two minutes left in the game, the Packers were down by two points and were set to get the ball back. The Rams had just scored on a Greg Zuerlein 34-yard field goal, giving them a tenuous 29-27 lead. Now they were kicking the ball back to the Packers.

"It was scary," Rams quarterback Jared Goff said in an NFL report. "All our work on offense was done, and the ball was gonna be in his hands. I put on my hat and thought, It's his show now. It wasn't a very good feeling."

The Rams kicked the ball off, but instead of taking a knee in the end zone, kick returner Ty Montgomery took the ball out of the end zone on the kickoff and fumbled, sealing his team's fate. NFL.com reporter Mike Silver learned after the game that Green Bay coaches had instructed Montgomery to take a knee in the end zone, only to have Montgomery make his ill-advised foray down the field of his own volition.

According to multiple reports, Montgomery's teammates were left fuming.

"The game was won," Davante Adams said in an ESPN report. "I already worked out in my head how everything was going to happen. All we needed was the ball. It's disappointing. Our defense played a great game against a tough offense, but at the same time we've got to finish."

"They took him out (the previous drive) for a play and he slammed his helmet and threw a fit," one Packers player said in an NFL report. "Then (before the kickoff) they told him to take a knee, and he ran it out anyway. You know what that was? That was him saying, 'I'm gonna do me.' It's a f------ joke.

On Monday, Montgomery said all sorts of things about his fateful foray into the open field.

“I made a split-second decision, I don’t know if this is going to land on the goal line,” Montgomery said Monday. “So I’m not going to take a knee on the goal line, at the half-yard line and take a chance at putting the game in the refs’ hands. Unfortunately, I ended up fumbling the football. I don’t think we’d be having this conversation if I didn’t fumble the football because we know how good our two-minute offense is. But I’ve never been a guy to completely disobey what I’m being told.”

But as you can see from the video, Montgomery starts his kickoff fielding procedure by standing at the goal line and retreating to catch the football just before making the decision to head upfield.

The loss gives Green Bay a 3-3-1 record and bereft of a signature win against the undefeated Rams.

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