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Damarious Randall and Quinten Rollins are no Ahmad Carroll and Joey Thomas

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Ahmad Carroll and Joey Thomas, they're not. At least not off the field anyway.

And the Green Bay Packers better hope they're not like them on it, either.

Carroll and Thomas, the Packers' first two picks of the 2004 NFL draft, might be best remembered for their meeting-room brawl as rookies.

On the field, both were busts.

Nearly a dozen years later, the Packers again drafted cornerbacks with their first two picks -- Damarious Randall of Arizona State in the first round and Quinten Rollins of Miami (Ohio) in the second.

Who knows if they will turn to be better players than Carroll and Thomas? Carroll, the 25th overall pick, got cut in the middle of his third season. Thomas, the 70th pick, didn't even last that long.

But at least there's no concern that teammates will have to separate Randall and Rollins like they did Carroll and Thomas. Nearly four months before the Packers picked them, the two forged a friendship as roommates at the Senior Bowl, where Randall (sort of) predicted this kind of long-term pairing.

"The one thing that I remember is I kept telling him like, 'We're going to be on the same team,'" Randall said. "I was really joking with him."

A day after the Packers picked Randall at No. 30, it was no joke. They called Rollins' name with their second-round pick, No. 62 overall. And that's when Rollins' phone buzzed with a message from Randall.

"I just texted him like, 'I told you,' with a lot of laughing faces," said Randall, who admitted to being fond of the emoji.

Said Rollins: "He sent me a message, like, 'It's crazy.' We talked about this at the Senior Bowl that we might be on the same team, and then it happens. It's just surreal. He's a great player, and I'm looking forward to learning from him. He'll probably say the same."

That he did.

During the Packers' rookie orientation camp last weekend, Randall was told about the history between Carroll and Thomas, about how Carroll jumped Thomas after a meeting during which Thomas said the only reason Carroll stood higher on the depth chart was because he was a first-round pick.

That, Randall said, would never happen between him and Rollins.

"Nah, we both want to see each other get better," he said. "And that's kind of the only thing we want to see."

Packers coach Mike McCarthy sees it as a mutually beneficial relationship for Randall and Rollins.

"I think probably more so on the personal side," McCarthy said during last weekend's rookie camp. "They're going to go through a lot of things. A lot of their experiences will be similar. Yeah, I think it would definitely help to have someone who was drafted close to you, same position and so forth. Yeah, I think it would definitely be helpful."

Randall and Rollins are roommates again. They stayed together in the same hotel during rookie camp and probably will bunk together at St. Norbert College during training camp this summer.

"That's what makes it fun," Rollins said. "We're friends, [but] we also know we're competing. We're in there studying together. We've built a strong enough friendship where we're not going to be jealous of one another. We're teammates at the end of the day, but we're also competitors in our hearts. I think it's going to be great. I'm glad I got to meet him at the Senior Bowl, and it's been a great friendship ever since."