'He is a dude:' Why Ty'Ron Hopper is the Green Bay Packers' sleeping giant
He played 18 snaps as a rookie. But nobody should be shocked if this linebacker out of Missouri fights his way into the Green Bay lineup. (After all, he has the D.J. Smith perspective.)
PLANTATION, Fla. — He’s down here, in the sultry south, preparing for a role that may or may not come. Last season was strange. Ty’Ron Hopper was effectively banished from his home — the football field. Hopper went from blitzing and blasting and chasing down the best athletes in the sport as one of the best linebackers in the SEC to riding pine. This rookie linebacker for the Green Bay Packers played on special teams, but as for defense? Your 3 1/2-year-old can count the number of times he saw the field.
Eighteen snaps.
That’s all.
Two flippin’ percent of the total defensive snaps for the 2024 season.
There’s no way anyone knows the name “Ty’Ron Hopper” here at Burtons Grill, a short drive from where he’s training in April. But as he struts inside, Hopper’s stature alone draws the attention of a few patrons. In all black, he’s all muscle. As if born and bred to play linebacker in any era. The chiseled 228-pounder takes a seat in this booth and orders a salad with salmon. Folks who know nothing about pro football could take one look at Hopper and wonder in what galaxy a creature like this should play only 18 snaps. The NFL is cruel like that.
Think about his new town, too. Green Bay, Wisc., is a shock to the system to all 22- and 23-year-olds. Unlike most players on the roster, Hopper did not exactly have the cathartic world of professional football as an escape. There weren’t three hours of physicality waiting for him each Sunday. Asked how he passed the time after practice — to stay sane — Hopper cannot pinpoint a single activity. He ordered food on DoorDash. He watched TV. The Shelby, N.C., native may scope out a fishing hole in the future. Maybe attend a Milwaukee Bucks game.
Yet beneath this tranquil veneer is a mystery man of a linebacker who knows his time’s coming.
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No, he did not enjoy being kept on ice. “It was definitely hard at first,” Hopper admits. But given no alternative, he adapted. He became a master of his circumstances by embracing the benefits of spectating. Hopper got into the habit of listening to the play calls from the sideline, going through that call in his head and envisioning how he would attack that play. Would I have done this? Would I have done that? He tried not to lose his inner-belief.
Asked what separates him from his peers, Hopper first points to his blitzing. He sees red.
“But I feel like I can do everything to be honest,” Hopper adds. “I feel like I can cover. Man. Zone. Shit, whatever it is.”
If he’s forced to stand around again, fine. He’ll stay patient.
But this fall, Hopper plans to introduce himself to the NFL world.
It’d be nice timing, too. These Packers under head coach Matt LaFleur keep on crashing and burning at the same dead-end. For all talk about toughness — a welcomed emphasis! — there always seems to be an NFC foe with sharper elbows in the playoffs. Beating the conference’s elite has become a problem. Unlike the contender facing a similar plight in the AFC, Brandon Beane’s Bills, this team did not completely renovate its defense this offseason. Hardly. Through free agency and the draft, all the Packers did was water the plants.
They’ll count on homegrown talent ascending.
Hopper, a player forgotten by many fans, may be the variable this unit needs. The linebacker sets his fork down, holds eye contact and vows to work. And work. After a year of envisioning what he’d do with those play calls from coordinator Jeff Hafley, here’s what the linebacker will bring.
“Always by the ball. Always finishing by the ball. Making plays. I’m excited for this year.”
He’s not alone.
Thirteen years ago, another Packers linebacker harbored the same dreams. This player actually did get the chance to start several games through the 2011 and 2012 seasons. His upside was clear to all. And then, on Oct. 14, 2012, D.J. Smith wrecked his knee. Forced to give up the sport he loved, Smith unceremoniously slipped into retirement, started coaching and — through his own winding path — became Hopper’s linebackers coach at Missouri.
He witnessed what it takes to excel in the NFL. Lived it. Told a Hall of Famer like Charles Woodson what to do play to play.
Smith now believes his protégé can enjoy the life of collisions he never had.
“He is a dude, man,” Smith says. “He’s a starter. He’s a starter in the National Football League. People are going to have to gameplan for him. If he can get rolling? He’s a Pro Bowler.”
Smith is not hyping for the sake of hype.
Long before praising Ty’Ron Hopper to this extreme, Smith welcomed the young buck into his office… and tore him apart.
Instant connection
His football career was hijacked in front of 19.9 million viewers. On NBC’s Sunday Night Football, the Green Bay Packers traveled to the undefeated Houston Texans in desperate need of a win. With 4:27 remaining in the second quarter, running back Arian Foster bounces a run wide — safely away from D.J. Smith — before, then, spinning left and turning upfield.
There’s zero need for Duane Brown to peel back. It’s illegal to do so while leading with your head. Nonetheless, the Texans’ 6-foot-4, 329-pound guard turns and goes full demolition-derby mode to obliterate the 5-11, 239-pound Smith. He never sees it coming. The blindside collision is basically the Sapp-on-Clifton, “put a jersey on” blow from a decade prior.
Underneath the weight of it all, Smith’s leg folds up.
He collapses to all fours in visible pain, four trainers rush out to assist and scans soon confirm the worst.
With one cheap shot, Smith tore his ACL, his MCL, nearly suffered “a complete blowout” of his knee. His season was done. His career wasn’t far behind. Smith was released in April ’13, bounced from San Diego to Houston to Carolina and the calls stopped. There’s no ill will. When they were teammates, Smith laughed off that hit with Brown. But this was also the first and only injury of his entire football career, from age 4 to 25.
In that split-second, Smith went from full-fledged starter on a Super Bowl contender to finished.
Little did he know, that night in Houston would lead him on a path toward molding another Packers linebacker.
In ‘14, his father (a longtime coach) got Smith his first job: coaching middle school girls basketball.
In ’15, he got a defensive coordinator job at Vance H.S.
In ’16, Smith returned to his alma mater — Appalachian State — and steadily climbed from recruiting to defensive analyst to outside linebackers before taking the Missouri linebackers job in 2020. Growing up, Smith never imagined coaching. He saw how much it pulled Dad away from home. After five minutes of running a linebacker drill? He was hooked. His first exposure to Hopper was as an opponent in 2021.
Hopper, a Florida Gator then, was everywhere with 15 tackles.
“I was just like, ‘Man, if we can get that dude? We can win some games,” Smith says.
There was familiarity. At one point, Smith recruited Hopper’s older cousin. So once Florida’s coaches were fired and Hopper entered the portal, he pounced. On the phone, Hopper expressed his goal of playing in the NFL. Smith couldn’t promise him anything but if he put some weight on? If he was willing to work? He told the kid he’d have every opportunity to play on Sundays.
The two met in-person and it was football love at first sight.
“He came in and you talk about twitch? Man! Frickin’ twitchy,” Smith says. “Big. Could run. I remember meeting him for the first time. I was like, ‘Look, dude, if I looked like you, I would’ve probably played another 12 years.’ We hit it off.”
Hopper had two requirements — to stay in the SEC, to be coached hard. All along, he had no interest in shopping himself around school to school. One conversation with Smith and he was sold.
The ex-Packer most certainly delivered.
“He was always on me,” Hopper says. “Always pushed me to be better. Pushed me to do more. I can’t lie. He focused on my game so much. A teacher to the core.”
If he gave up a reception on Saturday, Smith brought up that specific play in individual drills the next Tuesday.
Memories resurface. Hopper laughs.
Part of him doesn’t want to bring up this particular play because it was so embarrassing. Against Kentucky, Hopper absorbed a paralyzing stiff-arm to the chest. “Man, I didn’t want to say that,” says Hopper, pausing, closing his eyes. “Nobody wants to get stiff-armed.” The following week? Smith attacked this play full bore. At practice, Smith taught Hopper how to chop a ball carrier’s hand down to make the tackle. He also noted that if you play long enough, everyone is bound to get stiff-armed. Even Ray Lewis, an all-timer, took an Eddie George spear to the face.
“That’s the game we play, baby,” says Smith, who’s now the defensive coordinator at App State. “But at the end of the day, what do you do? How do you respond? He always responded the right way.”
Inside his office, clicker in hand, Smith got into the habit of re-watching the entire game with Hopper 1 on 1 each Sunday morning. It didn’t matter if the Tigers got home at 1 a.m. from a road game. The duo dissected film together at 8.
Smith was an unapologetic. “Real,” Hopper says.
After NFL-level plays, his go-to line was the same: “This is next level shit.” After a bad plays? The coach was not shy. “Man this ain’t it,” imitates Hopper. “This ain’t it.” Smith’s wife would get on his case for being too hard on Hopper but his response was always the same. If this new linebacker wanted to shine in the NFL one day, this was the only tact to take. Nobody sugarcoats a thing in the big league, he told her. Nobody’s going to hold his hand.
“It’s a grown man's league,” Smith says. “It’s a grown man’s business and they don't have time to beat around the bush. So I gave it to him straight. It was tough love. As much as I got on ‘em, I was as big of a cheerleader of him as anybody else cheering behind him.”
His Packers career was cut short. But those two years filled Smith’s brain with eternal lessons for his coaching life.
Smith joined the defending champions as a 186th overall pick from a small school. Making matters worse, players were locked out that 2011 offseason. Not ideal when you’re trying to learn a Dom Capers playbook that’s two binders thick. His position coach — Winston Moss, mangled fingers ‘n all from 172 career games — was a hard ass in his own right. When training camp abruptly began, Moss taught Smith the virtues of tough love. During this phone conversation, he imitates Moss’ bellowing voice. The ex-pro had a few go-to lines himself. “It’s the National Football League,” Moss would say. “If you’re not running to the ball, you’re going to be out.”
Any moment, a linebacker could be called in front of the defensive room to cycle through all signals on a play.
“Charles Woodson don’t care, dog,” Smith adds. “You’ve got to be ready to roll.”
Nor would Woodson even talk to him. Or any rookies for that matter.
If he didn’t know for sure that you’d be on the team, Woodson didn’t bother.
“I remember it went from Wood not talking to me to, at some point during the season in 2011, I’m lining Wood up,” Smith says. “That’s how the NFL goes, especially with those vets. You’ve got to know your stuff and be on your game.”
It didn’t take long for Smith to assimilate with all of the playoff heroes from a year ago: Clay Matthews, Tramon Williams, Ryan Pickett, B.J. Raji, A.J. Hawk, even Woodson. The corner’s football brain blew his mind. Green Bay went 15-1 that 2011 season and suffered a bitter playoff loss to the New York Giants as an eight-point favorite. (More lessons: Anybody can be beaten.) Six games into 2012, D.J. Smith’s Packers career was over. (More lessons: Keep your head on a swivel.)
All of it served as a framework for how Smith pushed Hopper.
Inevitably, Hopper blossomed into an NFL prospect. His athleticism was always a cut above. Before he was a collegiate linebacker, Hopper was a cornerback and safety in high school. Smith cites a play in practice where Hopper burst through the line on a jailbreak screen — past the quarterback — and managed to hit the brakes, reverse course and chase down the running back for a three-yard gain. “It was unbelievable,” he says. On gameday, there were countless moments that made his jaw drop. Hopper highlights fill the tape Smith shows potential recruits.
In 23 games at Mizzou, Hopper had 133 tackles (20 for loss) with 5.5 sacks, eight pass breakups, one interception and one forced fumble. A finalist for the Butkus Award as the nation’s top linebacker, he earned second team All-SEC honors.
“If he stays on the right track,” Smith says, “he’s going to be special.’”
Ahead of the ’24 draft, the assistant coach told Hopper that he better get drafted higher than he did. Any lower — as in the seventh round — and he’s a “scrub.”
“Look dude, you’ve got to be better than me,” Smith told Hopper. “I wouldn't be coaching you this hard if I knew you weren’t.”
The Packers selected Texas A&M’s Edgerrin Cooper 45th overall in the second round, then followed up with Hopper 91st overall in the third. Of course, it was Cooper who flashed the star ability as a rookie. Isaiah McDuffie, profiled here, isn’t going anywhere either. Coaches obviously trust the veteran.
But Ty’Ron Hopper responded to that stiff-arm the right way.
He believes he’s built to bounce back from a lost rookie season.
Roots
For six years, his father was his in prison. The sort of childhood loss that has psychologically shaken the likes of Damar Hamlin and David Long Jr. But down in Shelby, N.C.? Hopper was just fine. Life went on. His family was so large that nothing but beautiful chaos consumed his formative years.
Hopper has nine siblings in all.
They weren’t all in the house at the same time. But in addition to this, his aunts have eight kids. Carry the one… divide by two… and there was usually about eight boys running around at the same time. He estimates he was 6 or 7 years old when his father was put behind bars. The memory hardly even registers — Hopper’s family told him Dad was going off to school somewhere.
“So I can’t really say it bothered me,” Hopper says. “It wasn’t something that I thought about.”
Day to day, 20+ family members usually herded to grandma’s house for fun.
In the streets, the kids played two-hand touch football. In the grass, football was full tackle. Someone usually suffered a hearty gash and no tears were permitted. Whenever Ty’Ron got bloodied playing football — be it the backyard or an official game — Mom never coddled her son. “I’m getting up slow?” Hopper recalls. “She was like, “No. Get up!” This was the type of mother who’d instruct Hopper to fight bullies, not run from them. Jenata Black made sure there wasn’t any free time for her son to get swept up by a shady crowd. Football and basketball and baseball seasons all bled from one to the next.
Through it all, mother and son became exceptionally close.
One reason why is that she had him very young — at age 16. They still talk every single day.
Ty’Ron never asked Mom how she was able to feed so many mouths, but she got it done somehow. Long before he received Smith’s coaching, Hopper had a mother building up his armor.
Seeing her work different factory jobs to keep the lights on was inspiring.
“By herself,” Hopper adds. “I feel like just that alone makes you pretty tough as a kid. She just worked. She went to work. Came back. Cooked. Cleaned. Seeing that, I feel like that shaped me honestly.
“And my mama? She was tough. She just didn’t really play no soft stuff.”
Jenata was the one who compelled all boys to play all sports. Not necessarily so they could earn a college scholarship one day. She knew it’d be good for the soul.
“A lot of moms, they’re scared,” says Hopper’s uncle, Tyrone. “They say, ‘the kid might get hurt.’ She wanted her kid to be just super tough.”
When Ty’Ron entered middle school, Mom moved the family to Gaffney, S.C.
Each summer, Hopper also got into the habit of staying at his uncle’s house in Roswell, Ga.
Down here, it always felt like he was stepping outside of a bubble. Constantly playing ball against kids who were three or four years older, Ty’Ron developed a competitive fire. Years later, this is what D.J. Smith points to first — how Hopper must win “at everything.” Didn’t matter if it was a game of checkers, video games or shooting hoops at the Mizzou facilities. Not that Hopper ever says much. He still doesn’t. And that’s where people get Ty’Ron all wrong.
To this day, Uncle Tyrone will call his nephew, ask what’s up and Ty’Ron only says that he’s laying around watching TV. When he’s off the field, he’s off. A homebody. His family has explored more local restaurants in Green Bay than he has.
“But when he’s active? He’s active,” Tyrone says. “He’s going 100 miles per hour.”
He realized that much when he sent Ty’Ron through football drills as a kid.
And when Tyrone saw hints of physicality in his younger brother’s son, he passed along highlights of Sean Taylor and told Ty’Ron to research this former Washington Redskins enforcer. He saw a lot of similarities in their games. Even the picture of Taylor he sent was a spitting image of his nephew.
Predictably, Hopper was blown away by the clips of Taylor sending ball carriers airborne. “The way you play?” Uncle Tyrone told him, “I can see you playing fast and physical like him.”
Eventually, Ty’Ron moved to Roswell for good to live with his uncle. The move wasn’t strictly football-related. Both of Ty’Ron’s parents believed the structure and discipline would be good for their 15-year-old. Uncle Tyrone flat-out told him: This is how it’s done every day. This is the way you train. He bought into everything. His body filled out. The Roswell coaches transitioned Hopper from DB to linebacker and the college offers poured in.
Hopper went full Sean Taylor on players — torpedo’ing his body at all angles — but his favorite memory? That’d be the time he picked off a pass, returned it to the house and perfectly executed a front flip in the end zone.
Dad even got out of prison in time to attend his collegiate games at both Florida and Missouri.
Smith entered his life. The NFL became a reality.
Now, the Green Bay Packers could use a front flip or two.
The player you can expect
From afar, he’s watching. Always watching. D.J. Smith studied every single one of Ty’Ron Hopper’s snaps as a rookie.
Exhibition and regular season.
Defense and special teams.
The tough love continues. He’s never afraid to scold him with a hearty “you’re making me look bad!”
Says Smith: “I’m on his butt. I text him all the time. ‘Hey man, look. Got to be here. Got to be there. You got to finish.’ The coaching never stops. I watch everything.”
Last season did not go according to plan. Clearly there’s been a learning curve for the third-rounder. But there’s another reason you didn’t see much of him. The absolute last thing Hopper wants to do is cite an injury as an excuse — he refuses to discuss it, period — but the reality of 2024 is acknowledged by both Smith and his uncle. He hurt his ankle in the summer and could never quite shake the injury.
Now, he’s fully healthy and has a fresh shot to be himself.
Hopper wants zero sympathy and says fans can think whatever they’d like.
Granted, it’s hard for anyone to picture something they haven’t seen yet, so let Smith — a man who called Lambeau Field home — explain.
“He’s a frickin’ corner,” begins Smith, citing Hopper’s roots. “He’s got man coverage, corner skills. He got good feet, good hands. He’s strong. Plays with great pad level, good change of direction, has the IQ and has the want-to. He’s just got to get his opportunity. When he gets his opportunity? Like I told him one time, ‘You’ve got to be ready to go.’ Even if you got one leg, but they call you out, you’ve got to be ready to go.”
As a blitzer, Smith sees Hopper dominating offensive linemen. (“C’mon. They don’t have a chance. His twitch. He has some things about him — some natural ability — that you can’t coach.”)
What he may love most is his brain. (“He’s an intellectual. He’s not your normal football player.”)
I can confirm this much. Once the recorder’s shut off here at the restaurant, the two of us had one of the most fascinating conversations I’ve ever had with a player in such a setting. He is a man who thinks for himself.
Meanwhile, Uncle Tyrone challenges anyone to compare his nephew’s stats at Florida in 2021 — when he started only four games — to that year’s Butkus Award winner: Nakobe Dean. Excluding Georgia’s two playoff wins, the numbers are nearly identical. They played in the same conference, on the same side yet one player was nationally known and the other virtually ignored.
“Go ask Kirby Smart about Ty’Ron Hopper. He’s going to tell you, ‘Hey, he's a monster,’” Tyrone says. “Ask anybody that played against him.”
The play that sticks with him struck 30 seconds into Missouri’s narrow 26-22 loss to Georgia in 2022. He watched his nephew blitz off the edge and then lost vision of him as running back Kendall Milton turbo-charged through a hole. All of a sudden, a player in black appeared out of nowhere to punch the ball out. When Tyrone’s son told him it was Ty’Ron who made the play, he didn’t believe him. He needed to see the replay.
“When he gets a chance to shine,” Tyrone says, “he looks faster than everybody. He moves so fast when he sees what he wants.”
He, too, expects multiple Pro Bowls. He, too, points to his mind. How his nephew can tell you “every single thing” about a defense.
The Packers have a rich history of letting linebackers sit for a year or two. Before Smith was thrust into the lineup, Desmond Bishop was forced to wait three full years as a special-teamer. He took over in 2010 and no way does Green Bay win the Super Bowl without the temperamental bruiser who supplied 130 tackles (75 solo), four sacks, two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries, eight pass breakups and 15 TFLs that season.
Hopper hears the tale of Bishop waiting… and waiting… and knows he may need to bide his own time.
“I’m going to just do my part by staying ready,” Hopper says. “and do everything I can to show that I can be out there and play. That’s my main thing: Go back and grind.”
A year ago, he trained at Mike linebacker so he’ll master this Hafley defense “like the back of my hand.” To him, it’s not too complicated. He wants to “orchestrate” the entire defense with every fleeting rep he gets in OTAs and training camp. Obsess himself with the details.
He loves playing with Jordan Love. The Packers quarterback who bought him shoes for Christmas is chill and all business — his kind of teammate. They’ve shared many deep conversations about football and life. Part of Hopper expected the highly-compensated leader of the team to be standoffish. That wasn’t the case at all.
He trained in Florida with the excellent Nick Hicks of PER4ORM.
He still talks to Mom every day.
He expects this defense to take a giant step in 2025.
The football season is long and — for now — Hopper resides in the shadows. There’s no way to predict when he’ll get the green light.
But whenever a coach does yell “Hop!” and No. 59 sprints onto the field, there is one guarantee.
If a running back loops the opposite direction and spins back inside, he’ll stay on high alert for all incoming 329-pound offensive guards.
Really good insight and story Tyler. hanks
Awesome story, Tyler!