I agree with your observation. Who was the last guy the Packers drafted that had a chip on his shoulder? If you want to impress Ted, do it with your play on the field and your dedication off the field as well as in the film room. Not saying he is right or wrong here, but high character, humble guys seem to get TT's attention.
Sure. Add "smart" to the list. This draft might qualify as the "All-Time Greatest IQ Draft" if the schools are any indication. Stanford, Northwestern...sure. The athletic program at Cal doesn't like having the "Berkeley" tagged on the back so as not to sound like nerdy hippies (or I guess nerdy hipsters these days). UCLA is a pretty darn good state school and Clark sounds like a smart guy, particularly for a D-Lineman. Not sure how Utah St. got in there.
I have mixed feelings on the matter. Do you sacrifice some intensity with those kinds of "humble" guys?
I think it comes down to scheme, actually, which is an outgrowth of the dispositions of the brain trust.
The Packers are a thinking man's finesse team when you get down to it, which requires an emphasis on team play. Zone blocking, multi-receiver combination routes, and whatever Capers is doing on the defensive side of the ball...this stuff requires football smarts (which does correlate to native intelligence in today's game), learning, discipline. And what's happening in college football these days has strayed pretty far from what the NFL is doing. Players have to learn a new game.
In Green Bay, play making is supposed to come out of the team concept, unless you're a preeminent solo artist like Woodson or Matthews. Guys who are all about "me" don't work that well.
On the other hand, take the Bills as an example, just because I have more familiarity with them than any team other than the Packers. Ryan's 2015 offense was designed for ground and pound behind man blocking. Not a lot of thinking go on there...get off the ball and hit somebody. It got so bad Watkins complained, in the press, that the offense was suffering by not getting him the ball. He was right. In Green Bay that would not be tolerated. In Buffalo, the reaction was, "yeah, he's right" and they got him more involved. Mouthing off within a physical style of play tend to go together. You can't pick and choose how intensity manifests itself.
Buffalo's outstanding 2014 defense under Schwartz, which Packer fans saw first hand, was a downhill attacking unit with the personalities to match. Ryan's defense in 2015 was more of a finesse job...he's got a fair number of looks, standard 4-3, 4-3 Under, and few other variations. And the D-Line was *****ing in the press about Ryan not releasing the hounds, and that was not just Mario Williams doing the *****ing. It was a mismatch of scheme and personalities.
Or just look at the Seattle defense, a physical, downhill, very mouthy group with a "we're going to crowd the box and come at you; try to beat that" attitude. The personalities match the scheme. Wagner and Thomas in the middle keep the whole thing from flying off its axis.
So, in short, going for humble guys who don't mouth off isn't simply a scouting question or a locker room question...it's really a scheme question.
The reason I have mixed feelings on this issue is that I'm not crazy about Capers scheme; it lacks resiliency. It could use a dash of intensity and backbone from somebody other than Daniels.