Jeff Hafley is tapping into Matt LaFleur's football mind as he looks to build a smarter, faster Packers defense in 2025
DVOA, EPA/play, success rate, pass coverage, pass rush, run. You name a stat, and the Green Bay Packers defense was better with Jeff Hafley in 2024 than it had been under Joe Barry. Nonetheless, Hafley doesn’t think what he did last year is enough.The first year of a coordinator is tough and eventful in the […]
DVOA, EPA/play, success rate, pass coverage, pass rush, run. You name a stat, and the Green Bay Packers defense was better with Jeff Hafley in 2024 than it had been under Joe Barry. Nonetheless, Hafley doesn’t think what he did last year is enough.
The first year of a coordinator is tough and eventful in the NFL, especially coming from college. Hafley, who had never called plays in the pros, had to round out his coaching staff and teach the scheme to his assistants during last offseason. The system evolved throughout the year based on what the players could do and which players he had available, and now it's time to take the next step.
With the scheme in place, Year 2 brings new challenges. To keep improving, Hafley is counting on head coach Matt LaFleur's football IQ to solve X's and O's issues and avoid stagnation. During the process of watching tape with the coaching assistants, Hafley had LaFleur in all the meetings.
"He sat in all of them," Hafley revealed during his press conference on Monday. "We bounced ideas off of him, I bounced ideas off of him. I asked what he thought the offense was trying to do here, what he would think they would do moving forward, what he thinks of certain pressures, certain coverages. We talked a lot more football, because I wasn't just meeting with the staff trying to implement the defense. So we had a lot more football conversation, and I think that helped a lot."
Evolution
The Packers' defense played its best football down the stretch last year, but picking up where it left off is not an automatic feat. Hafley's first challenge with the new version of his defense is to get back to where they were late in 2024.
"In a perfect world, you want to get back to where you left off as fast as possible and build from there. So how fast can we do that? We have guys who have played in this system, we have some new pieces we need to add," Hafley explained. "We need to evolve, we can't just do the same things and say 'here's the playbook, this is what we're running." No, we're a different team, it's a different year, offenses are gonna evolve, we have to evolve."
Last year, the Packers were fourth in EPA/play and 21st in success rate. This combination of stats means the defense created a lot of big plays and had good overall efficiency, but the down-by-down success wasn't ideal. This is something Hafley wants corrected.
"I would say I'd like us to be more consistent," Hafley added. "There's a lot of things we did do well, but I think the consistency needs to improve, certainly I need to improve. Looking at myself personally, how I called the games, what I called, when I called it, how I got to certain things, can I get there faster, my relationship with the players in Year 2. I feel like there's a trust built, so the relationship can get even better."
Jeff Hafley's performance in his first year as an NFL coordinator put him on the head coaching radar. His communication skills and the college HC background make him an automatic candidate. If the Packers keep evolving on defense, it won't take long for Hafley to have bigger opportunities.
Packers defense has evolved in so many areas that it’s difficult to keep track of it all
Jeff Hafley has done an impressive job in Year 1
