The Packers went off the board a bit to hire their newest defensive coordinator, Jeff Hafley.
While Hafley has spent plenty of time in the NFL coaching defensive backs, he was Boston College’s head coach for the last four seasons.
Now, he’ll scheme up the defensive for a Packers team that will have higher expectations in 2024.
On Thursday, head coach Matt LaFleur addressed moving on from former coordinator Joe Barry to hire Hafley.
“You guys know how I feel about Joe Barry and I’m so thankful for our time together,” LaFleur said in his press conference. “I’ve got so much respect for him as a man, as a coach, and what he was able to do for us. Those are tough decisions. But I think as the head football coach, sometimes you’ve got to make tough decisions in terms of what you think you need to do moving forward to put your team in the best possible position.
“[We] just felt really good about what Jeff Hafley is going to bring to us in terms of his ability to lead, his ability to connect. Certainly have always had respect for him from afar as a football coach. He’s worked with my brother at two different stops, he’s worked with Kyle Shanahan at two different stops — Cleveland and San Francisco. I how those guys, how much respect they have for him as a person first and a coach second. But just really excited [about] what he’s going to bring. Certainly, it will be a different scheme. But I think it’s one that will be easy to adjust to with the personnel that we have.”
Teams don’t use their base defensive personnel much any longer, but the Packers will be switching from a 3-4 to a 4-3 style. But LaFleur doesn’t see that change being all that tough.
“I wanted to get what I thought was the best for us,” LaFleur said. “And that’s not to discredit anybody else, it’s just that every situation is a little bit different. I equate putting a coaching staff together, it’s like putting a puzzle together. And how does each piece fit? That’s an important part of it, is the fit. And he just happens to run more of a 4-3.
“But I felt comfortable with, again, what we had — because the last thing you want to do is just scrap everything that you’ve got going for you, especially when you have some pretty good players that have performed at a high level and guys under contract and all this. ‘Gutey’ [G.M. Brian Gutekunst] was a part of the process when we were interviewing these guys, I certainly wanted to make him feel on board with it. He was pretty comfortable with it. So, we went out and got Hafley.”
LaFleur added that he wants the defense “to be fast and physical and attack the ball. We will be a little bit more vision-based on the backend and I think that’s [a] great opportunity to be able to go out there and generate takeaways.”
The Packers finished No. 10 in points allowed and No. 17 in yards allowed in 2023.
