One almost could have blinked and missed Will Blackmon’s career as a Green Bay Packer. But if you had blinked, you’d have missed some really fun Packers memories.

By position, Blackmon, a fourth-round pick in 2006 out of Boston College, was a cornerback. He did play some nickel corner in Green and Gold, but his calling card was his efforts on special teams, particularly in the return game.

At one point after the 2009 season, Blackmon even said that returning kicks was what he was “born to do.”

Unfortunately, as the NFL is wont to do, playing took a toll on Blackmon’s body. His rookie season was essentially a wash thanks to a broken foot, along with other injuries that season, limiting to just four games. During his 2007 season, more injuries limited him to just nine games. 

During his career, he suffered cracked ribs, a broken thumb, two foot fractures, and two torn ACLs. He once suffered nerve damage in his knee from icing it too long. 

Hard to cement a role for yourself under those kinds of circumstances. But in 2008, in his third season in Green Bay, it looked like he had turned the corner. He played in all 16 games, primarily on special teams, during which he amassed 1,157 yards on 55 kick returns, along with 36 punt returns for 398 yards and three total special teams touchdowns.

In one game during that season, Blackmon announced himself loudly in a blowout win over the Oakland Raiders. He scored on a 57-yard punt return in the second quarter, then followed that by recovering a fumbled punt return in the end zone after Tim Dwight had fielded it inside the 10. (Goofy stat: It made Blackmon the fourth player in NFL history to ever return a kick for a touchdown and have a fumble return touchdown in the same game.)

The Packers seemingly had found their long-term kick returner, and he provided help at nickel corner as well. And then, early in the season, Blackmon suffered the second of his ACL injuries.

After that season, the Packers offered him a one-year tender, but then cut him before the fateful 2010 season, in which Green Bay went on to win the Super Bowl, with an injury designation.

"I know I'm not injury-prone, and talking to Coach McCarthy, he knows that," Blackmon said before that season. "It's not like I have a hamstring pull and can't go. These aren't toughness injuries. These are straight season-ending. Find anybody who snaps their foot in half, they're not going back out there. You break the top rib where the collarbone is, you're not going back out there. Tear your knee up, you're not going back out there. That's just been the story. But going through those things really made me mature and grow up and made me become a man for this game."

Even with all the injuries, as a kick returner for the Packers, Blackmon brought back 66 kicks for 1,393 yards. He also added 96 punt returns for 953 yards and 2 touchdowns, while winning multiple Special Teams Player of the Week awards and also being one of the better special teams tacklers.

Following his time in Green Bay, he spent time with the New York Giants, Seattle Seahawks, Jacksonville Jaguars and Washington Redskins. He even played some indoor football and played briefly in Canada before calling it a career.

Since his playing career, he has worked in broadcasting, and also is currently a wine concierge The Wine MVP, a company he launched, inspired by other NFL players who went into the spirits business. (He’s also a pretty good follow on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.)

While he remains involved in broadcasting, it’s the wine business he’s primarily focused on.

“This was a challenge I embraced because my style is that I want to make wine approachable to everybody,” he told NFLPA.com. “... I want my audience to realize that not only a certain crowd can consume wine and it's more fun than people think.”