Jeff Hafley Packers new DC

[musclestang]

Considering i don't recognize his name at all, I probably don't know enough to have an opinion. From brief watching of things, his attitude seems right, seems like a decent guy,, so we'll see I guess. But I can't project anything from college HC to NFL coordinator position. The game is very different. No idea what we'll see. I hope it's better. I don't think it can really be worse. We had a very under performing defense, that's not a high bar.

So i'm in a wait and see mode. I'll see what they are next season

[packman114]

I see a lot of people saying we need to draft a safety to fit Hafley's system of single high. Could Nixon fit that mold? He seems to have the speed and was a pretty solid tackler. Is Anthony Johnson fast enough?

[musclestang]

I'm not sure Nixon is even back with the team unless it's for a lot less money. IMO he was a decent return man on a unit that is being increasingly removed by the league and a sub par slot corner. We need to upgrade there if you ask me. I don't think he has the range to play that safety position as it's being described.

[BF004]

Think I found out who DrJ is

[Acrobat]

I’m actually excited for this. His scheme is what we all need, he’s actually had some success. I don’t care that he had good players on Ohio State. He brought them from really bad to really good. I mostly like the focus not only on tackling, but the angles we take. I’ve been complaining about angles for years.

[Backthepack4ever]

I see a lot of people saying we need to draft a safety to fit Hafley's system of single high. Could Nixon fit that mold? He seems to have the speed and was a pretty solid tackler. Is Anthony Johnson fast enough?

Count me in the camp of a high profile FA safety. I have no interest in thinking a rookie in this class is the answer in 2024.

There will be so e nice options of FA. We need a vet imo

[Yoop]

I'm not sure Nixon is even back with the team unless it's for a lot less money. IMO he was a decent return man on a unit that is being increasingly removed by the league and a sub par slot corner. We need to upgrade there if you ask me. I don't think he has the range to play that safety position as it's being described.

heck yes, Nixon is so inconsistent, he's backup type player at slot corner, we need someone better there as well as a safety, possibly a replacement for Campbell too.

single high, man coverage, requires skilled athletic players, I like the intentions, but it's easier said then done, but it's a goal I've been hoping for, that and more 5th man rush packages, if ya can't get after the QB nothing ya do in the secondary will save ya, jmo

[APB]

I see a lot of people saying we need to draft a safety to fit Hafley's system of single high. Could Nixon fit that mold? He seems to have the speed and was a pretty solid tackler. Is Anthony Johnson fast enough?

I think Nixon is fast enough and, more importantly, has the instincts to play the single high role. That, and as you mentioned, he’s a willing tackler.

Johnson has the speed, I think, but I’m not sold he has the instinctual chops yet to play the role. Could he grow to be that guy? I guess it’ll depend on how good his new coach is.

I see Savage as fast enough and potentially smart enough to play the position but he’s a proven liability in the tackling department.

The other thing about the safety position going forward is the Packers will be looking for two distinctly separate types of safety - the speedy free range type with instinct to play up high and the strong powerful type with the ability to play low - rather than the virtually interchangeable types they’ve been playing. That should give you draftniks something to key in on when making your player evaluations.

[YoHoChecko]

Ok. Here are a collection of my thoughts on the defense and coordinator from before the hire.

Our DBs are athletic marvels with limited football iq (besides Jaire and besides the now-departed Rasul)

I like the “draft athletes” model. But right now, I want to scale back on those metrics in favor of football IQ. For safeties, ILBs, and nickel corners in particular, I’m looking for the instincts and physicality.

But also like foosball, I say all that with the added request that can you please do that without totally sacrificing the athleticism and RAS?? Thanks.

(Two all-pros please)

I don't care about man or zone.

I don't care about 3-man front or 4-man front.

I only care that we hire someone whose theory is that we should try to contest forward passes in the air.

Personally, I want a more aggressive defense. Not necessarily lots of blitzing or anything, but I want to see a team that aims to contest every throw. But what I want most of all is for the scheme to match the personnel. Before we traded Rasul, I was adamant that with such a strong CB group, we were wasting/mis-using the personnel by playing our CBs off so often. We were playing an instinctive/intelligent defense in the secondary with athletic and less intuitive players.

Now, we're Jaire and youth. And we're going to add to the group in the draft this offseason, almost definitely. So whatever scheme we pick, we have the opportunity to fill the room with guys who fit.

But that's what I want personally. I can hope for that. But I like to mold my expectations to what I think/know the team prefers. And so I'm trying to find defenses that do really well at limiting big plays AND who play more aggressively. I think MLF's idea of limiting possessions, being efficient and scoring frequently on offense, and not allowing the opposition to score quickly to keep the score down is a good overall model. I can get with it.

But if you want to do that, you also have to have methods beyond turnover luck and opposition mistakes to stop them from going right down the field with short passes and YAC and long scoring drives. And Barry just plain doesn't contest the flats or any late leaking targets. Like not at all.

So do we switch up the scheme and keep drafting athletes first? Or do we start drafting instinctive click-and-close high-level tackles? Or a little of both.

I am rooting for a little of both; tweak the scheme. Tweak the drafting. Get me some instinctive tacklers in the secondary to mix in with the athletic prowess of Jaire, Valentine, and Stokes. Gimme different skillsets back there.

I watched that hour-long video; and I also watched about half of the teaching presentation he gave about why he likes press coverage and how he implements it.

Hafley specifically discussed contesting and affecting every throw; he specifically discussed disrupting the route timing; and he specifically discussed getting good football players with high instincts and football IQ on the field to mix with the guys who are projections based on athletic talent.

Further, I have on many occasions discussed that our secondary needs to think less--that's who they are. And Richard Sherman gave a nice review of his year with Hafley in which he said this guy makes it so easy and feel so simple to understand the gameplan and explain to the players what they can expect to see from the upcoming opponent due to extreme preparation.


So, in short, I can't complain. This guy clears the (admittedly very low bar) I set for the hire to perfection. He is bringing attention and change to the exact issues I said I wanted addressed. So even though I'm not sure his track record is a glowing model of success and even though I don't know much about him and even though he's a little too similar to the head coach we have in-house (though he and Hafley are barely acquaintances; I'm not running with this buddy/friend thing. They've never been on staff together and never talked more than brief professional interactions)....

I can be nothing but content. Those are the parameters I set out before the process began, and they have been met. I am officially in the "cautiously optimistic, mostly pleased" category on this move. He has upside. And he won't be worse than Barry.

[APB]

Well, at least he’s got this going for him:

[APB]

So, in short, I can't complain. This guy clears the (admittedly very low bar) I set for the hire to perfection. He is bringing attention and change to the exact issues I said I wanted addressed. So even though I'm not sure his track record is a glowing model of success and even though I don't know much about him and even though he's a little too similar to the head coach we have in-house (though he and Hafley are barely acquaintances; I'm not running with this buddy/friend thing. They've never been on staff together and never talked more than brief professional interactions)....

I can be nothing but content. Those are the parameters I set out before the process began, and they have been met. I am officially in the "cautiously optimistic, mostly pleased" category on this move. He has upside. And he won't be worse than Barry.

Pretty much where I’m at in this moment. More specifically, my view of him is ascending toward “good” hire from the “less-than-inspired” feel I had when I first learned of his hiring and since learned more about him.

[YoHoChecko]

About to dive into Andy Herman's Deep Dive on Hafley

[Labrev]

I actually I would have been more surprised to hear we actually hired Dennard Wilson than making this kind of out-of-left-field hire, or going with one of the less-heralded guys on our list, like Staley or Durde. Other than Bisaccia, hiring one of "the favorites" isn't really the norm for us.

It is only surprising to me in that it's different from last time, where we knew the finalists, and ofc because Hafley was not on our radar at all.

Anyway, I don't love this hire but I do kinda like it. He checks a lot of the boxes I wanted checked.
+ Young
+ but not too young/inexperienced (has been DC, and even HC)
+ Address current defense's weaknesses: wants to close down the middle, contest passes more
+ NFL experience (not new to this level of comp)
+ College football experience (more innovative)
+ Preferences seem to fit our personnel
— Track-record is not overly impressive
— MLF's staff hiring track-record doesn't inspire confidence (first person I thought of when I heard this news was Mennenga)
— Seems energetic, but not truly Alpha, would have liked more of a dawg next to MLF and he just seems like a clone.
— Has the appearance of cronyism
— Did MLF really hire the best coach available, or did he hire the scheme that sounded the best? I feel like scheme preference should come second to coaching prowess, and it is a tough sell (given recent NFL success) that Dennard Wilson was not the best coach available.

[Labrev]

Ultimately, I don't think there was really a DC hire that was going to anger me, not even Staley (unless it was totally ridiculous like Ed Donatell), because this time we brought in guys for interviews from all sorts of different defensive backgrounds. The candidates were way better than last time.

So whoever got hired had to beat lots of other competing ideas to convince MLF (+whoever else is involved) that theirs are the best.

I feel a lot better about the hire and (more importantly) the hiring process than I did last time.

[Yoop]

no more death by a thousand paper cuts, heck we have man cover corners, get a range rover FS and lets rock and roll, more devotion to stopping in the run, Haf sounds like a world apart from Joe Barry, hopefully Gute gets him a few players to make his plans work.

[NCF]

Hafley's Co-DC at Ohio State was Greg Mattison. Greg Mattison spent 2018 with Michigan coaching DL... specifically Rashan Gary.

[Bogey]

Bart Winkler (whoever that is) wins the week

[Bogey]

@TomSilverstein
FWIW, LaFleur and Hafley aren’t close friends as some have reported. He knows Hafley through his brother, Robert Saleh and Kyle Shanahan, all of whom worked with Hafley. They knew each other but weren’t ever on the same staff or guys who spoke often.

[Pckfn23]

Hafley's Co-DC at Ohio State was Greg Mattison. Greg Mattison spent 2018 with Michigan coaching DL... specifically Rashan Gary.

Interesting. A Wisconsin guy. Was the Co-DC again in 2020 and the defense "tanked." Never coached again after that.

[NCF]

This strikes me as super important. The Packers have been an awful tackling team for as long as I can remember. The TC practices I have attended, where defensive players tackle a rolling ball with a super predictable rolling pattern... maybe that was not the best drill. Maybe the Packers have the players to be good tacklers, they just haven't been taught how.