The Green Bay Packers parted ways with their former defensive coordinator Joe Barry shortly after their divisional round loss to the San Francisco 49ers in January, and announced a few weeks later that they had hired Jeff Hafley as their new defensive coordinator. But Hafley was not a well-known candidate in Green Bay at the time, and his hiring came as a surprise to many Packers fans.
Hafley was the head coach at Boston College from 2020-2023. At BC, he went 22-26 as a head coach and would likely be on the hot seat for the 2024 season. That’s not the case now, as he will look to start fresh with a Green Bay unit that ranked in the bottom 10 in the NFL in most categories last season.
Hafley has alternated between college and NFL jobs in his coaching career. In the NFL, he worked for one season with the 49ers under Chip Kelly and DC Jim O’Neill (2016) and then two seasons (2017 and 2018) as defensive backs coach under Kyle Shanahan and DC Robert Saleh. During that time, he was also a colleague of future Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans.
And going back even further, Hafley also played under former Packers defensive coordinator Mike Pettine (who was replaced by Barry) when Pettine and O’Neill were with the Browns in 2014 and 2015. Also of note, Kyle Shanahan was the Browns’ offensive coordinator in 2014.
As you can see, Hafley has a varied NFL background that has worked with 3-4 and 4-3 systems, among others. The general opinion is that there isn’t much difference between the two, but that’s not entirely true. For one, the base personnel is different and the gap responsibility for the defensive front is different. For another, the personnel between the two isn’t always interchangeable.
So what will Hafley be up to in the NFL? There isn’t much insight and he didn’t go into too much detail in his first press conference, but we can get an idea from various sources.
First, he said in the opening press conference that he wants to play primarily a 4-3. Second, his defenses at Boston College were primarily 4-3 and you can see a lot of the Robert Saleh/4-3 influence in his units. And third, but perhaps most interesting, the new additions to the defense are Derrick Ansley and Anthony Campanile.
Ansley, the Packers’ new defensive passing game coordinator, spent the last three seasons with the Chargers and Brandon Staley was defensive coordinator last season. Anthony Campanile, the Green Bay Packers’ linebackers coach and defensive run game coordinator, spent the last four seasons with the Dolphins, including a year under famed defensive coach Vic Fangio in 2023.
This is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, the Packers have moved on from Joe Barry, who played a system loosely based on Fangio and Staley’s defensive principles. That would suggest that head coach Matt LaFleur would also want to move on from that system. But the hiring of Ansley and Campanile might suggest otherwise.
Although the Packers were one of the worst pass coverage units in 2023 with a two-deep/quarters coverage system, it seems LaFleur still wants to keep some of the split-safety structures used by those coaches while utilizing Hafley’s scheme to play more post-snap rotation at single high and allow a safety to run free.
A similar transition occurred in San Francisco in 2019, when the 49ers hired Joe Woods with a background in split safety coverage. They then implemented more split safety coverage shells before the snap, played more quarters and split quarters/cover-6 coverages, and largely became a simple cover-3 team on first down. Hafley’s scheme also relies on quarters coverage in obvious passing situations, and the additions from the Fangio/Staley family tree this season may also indicate a greater shift to that style of defense – albeit from a drastically different front structure, as we’ll see later in this series.
According to Sports Info Solutions, the Packers defense was a top-10 unit when it came to stopping the run after a one-high shell post-snap. They ranked ninth in the NFL in those situations with a 34% success rate against the opponent. However, they ranked 32nd in success rate against the opponent at 50% and 31st in open coverages in the middle of the field against the run at 53%.
Barry called some sort of two-deep safety coverage 69% of the time, which is the 13th-highest in the league. It makes sense that LaFleur doesn’t really want to live in that world after seeing the Packers’ defense get carved up on the run and pass with split safety coverages. Rather, Hafley gives them the opportunity to use those coverages more strategically and with a little more creativity, as we’ll also see later.
With the new Fangio/Staley-Tree coaches, we could see a version of the scheme mixed with the 3-3-5 structure, functioning more like a 4-3, which is how the Chargers set up their defense last season. They could still play a little more single-high safety coverage after the snap, which is more in line with the traditional Fangio-Tree defense.
But as you can see above, the old 3-3-5 penny front defense wasn’t exactly a winning model for a team that didn’t have a great interior run stuffer or safeties that could adequately support the run, which is what this style of defense is known for.
One thing won’t change, however: the use of a 4-2-5 nickel, which could actually see a resurgence with Hafley. The Packers have been hurt in run defense when opposing teams have run two stand-up edge rushers at their nickel fronts, as shown above.
But unlike Barry, Hafley used defensive ends on the line rather than upright edge defenders, and did not play the 9-tech, 3-tech, 3-tech, 9-tech “rush” front. It’s more of a traditional over/under front defense with the selective use of a 4-3 overload front with creative pressure packages thrown in.
That’s not to say he’ll do that in the NFL, but with Rashan Gary and Preston Smith, it’s possible. In a traditional 4-down front, all four down linemen typically play with their hands in the dirt.
Gary and Smith never really did that under Barry. With the move away from a 3-3-5 system, we definitely won’t see Preston Smith forced to cover receivers in the slot anymore.
Another big adjustment the Packers will need to make is personnel on defense, although the new scheme should already fit some players better. The defense already has players along the defensive line who can be aggressive 1-gap defenders and can quickly penetrate and advance into the backfield, like Kenny Clark.
Devonte Wyatt, Preston Smith, Rashan Gary and Lukas Van Ness should all seamlessly transition into a more aggressive 1-gap role. Van Ness, Gary and Smith will all likely work in nickel sub packages, but in a more compact split, not the wide 3-technique tackle and 9-technique defensive ends employed by Joe Barry. For a closer look at how the personnel fits into the defense, check out this breakdown from Justis and Ryan earlier this past offseason.
In 2023, Van Ness played a mix of hand in the dirt and stand-up edge, a more traditional outside linebacker role in a 3-4. It will be interesting to see how this translates to the new 4-3.
The good news for the linebackers is that they are all relatively good athletes who can play in space. They don’t have to think on the fly because the 4-3 scheme’s responsibilities are better and more clearly defined in terms of zone responsibilities and 1-gap run passes. The main difference is that they don’t have to slow down the run to give the safeties time to adjust the run alongside them. Safeties become primarily alley and force defenders on the perimeter rather than inside run gap players.
In the next article, we’ll cover the schematic fundamentals of the 4-3 Cover 3 coverage and some of the blitzes and strategies from Hafley that we’re likely to see this season. The strategies will be updated throughout the season as we learn more.
