GREEN BAY, Wis. -- As Green Bay Packers cornerback Davon House continued to crush home runs during the annual softball outing in mid-June, the left shoulder surgery he underwent five months earlier seemed like a non-issue.
Earlier in the month, however, House wasn't on the field for the Packers' minicamp practices or organized team activities. While fellow cornerbacks Tramon Williams and Casey Hayward took snaps with Green Bay's top defensive unit, House was only able to watch from the sideline.
"No lie; every day, I would beg the doctor to let me play, to go out and compete," House said. "But our doctors are very cautious. They didn't want me to run into anyone with the football aspect. But they have plans for me. They're going to let me loose in July."
Even though the OTA practices were voluntary, House wanted to be out there, hoping to pick up where he left off during the 2012 training camp. At that time, before suffering a shoulder subluxation injury in the team's first preseason game, a string of impressive practice performances appeared to have House in the lead for a starting cornerback job.
"To me, I felt like the job was mine," House said. "It was mine to lose and I lost it because of injuries to me. But later on in the season, (Sam) Shields got hurt and it gave me an opportunity to step in there. I think it showed the coaches that I can play."
When House returned to the field in Week 7 after more than two months of recovery, he showed flashes of what made him one of the players to watch each day in training camp. House started five games and was an every-down player in two of those games, but he wasn't quite the same. That was because House was playing with a harness around his left shoulder that limited him in certain ways.
"If you think I did good last year, then you have a whole other thing coming," House said. "I won't have that harness on, so it won't slow me down. So what you saw in the preseason, Week 1, there's going to be a lot of that."
When healthy, what House displayed was a physical style. Listed at 6-foot-1 and 195 pounds, House is the biggest cornerback on an otherwise slightly undersized group in Green Bay's secondary.
If House is going to win a starting job in 2013 like he thought he was about to in 2012, he knows that using his larger frame will be key.
"Physical play," House said. "Every down; physical play. I have an edge to me now, especially from watching. You got a little taste of what I can do last year and I'll be able to apply it for this year. That first day I'm out there, it's going to be loud."
House knows it won't be easy to beat out the talented array of cornerbacks that he'll be competing against for snaps every day in practice. Williams, Hayward and Shields are all friends and teammates of his. But that isn't distracting House from trying to reach his goal of grabbing a permanent starting spot this upcoming season.
"Us being this tight and being that we're able to compete like we do, it's only going to make us better," House said. "And the best man is going to play day in and day out. If it's right corner, left corner, we all feel like we should all be on the field, especially when it's dime (defense); all the corners should be out there, we feel. That's how good we are.
"We know for a fact that anyone from our cornerback group can go play on any other team and start. That's the way we feel."
House was a bit fortunate that he didn't do any further damage to his left shoulder by playing with the harness last season. The risk of that happening was minimal, which is why the Packers' training staff allowed it. But House knew, whether he chose to have surgery midseason or after the season was over, that an operation was necessary at some point.
"Even though I missed OTAs (while recovering from shoulder surgery), I feel it's the best chance for me to be healthy during training camp and at the same time compete last year during the season," House said of why he made the decision to play through the injury in 2012.
Now fully healed, House will be on the field when training camp begins in late July.
"The only way to keep my job is to compete," House said. "As you saw last year, you can win a job in training camp. That's my plan, to go out there and compete. I won't have a harness on, so I'm excited about that."
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