Rate the Packers’ hiring of new DC Jeff Hafley

What’s your knee jerk reaction to Green Bay’s new defensive coordinator?

On Wednesday, the Green Bay Packers announced that Boston College’s Jeff Hafley would replace Joe Barry as the team’s next defensive coordinator. Hafley, who recently spent time in college football, was previously a defensive backs coach at the NFL level, notably working under Robert Saleh with the San Francisco 49ers from 2016 to 2018.

So what is your reaction to the hiring? Vote down in the poll below.

Personally, I’m happy they went in a different direction than the quarters-heavy tree that Joe Barry was a branch off of. At this point, I’m not sure anyone other than Vic Fangio knows how to be a play-caller for that system, based on how the scheme has failed various times under non-Fangio coaches.

Hafley’s hiring will almost certainly mean that the Packers will transition to a single-high, four-man front defense that should be lighter on their feet overall. He should also play with more aggressive cornerbacks, something that Green Bay fans have been asking for now for years.

Does he have NFL defensive coordinator bona fides? No, but few people who were available to interview did. At the time of Hafley’s hiring, only two of the seven defensive coordinators who earned NFL opportunities this offseason have ever been NFL play-callers before: Jacksonville’s Ryan Nielsen and Philadelphia’s Vic Fangio. Nielsen, who the Packers interviewed for their 2021 defensive coordinator opening, was hired less than 48 hours after Green Bay’s loss to the San Francisco 49ers — days before Barry was even fired. Fangio seemed to be locked in on joining the Eagles once he requested his release from the Miami Dolphins. He was never a real candidate for the Packers’ job.

So with that in mind, it’s hard for me to complain about the hire. Whoever it was going to be that replaced Barry, it was going to be a first-time defensive play-caller rather than some pie-in-the-sky mystery candidate who was going to make everyone happy. Will Hafley be good? Who knows! Will he be different from Barry? Almost certainly.