Coaching decisions quietly position the Packers with a strong long-term fallback option
Raheem Morris and Jonathan Gannon were fired as head coaches over the past few days.
Mike Pettine, Joe Barry. It was a hard sequence of decisions at defensive coordinator until head coach Matt LaFleur could find Jeff Hafley, dramatically improving the outlook of the defensive side of the ball over the past two years.
Beyond the Xs and Os, and while the results are not always ideal, Hafley has been a great football mind and an impressive leader. As a consequence, though, the coach has drawn interest for head coaching jobs — and interviews will happen soon.
That creates an automatic concern for the Packers, because going to the market again to look for a replacement is inevitably risky. Well, at least if the franchise is willing to spend money on coaches.
Raheem Morris and Jonathan Gannon are on the coaching market
But if the Packers end up losing Jeff Hafley this offseason, the coaching carousel has made some intriguing names available. The Atlanta Falcons parted ways with Raheem Morris, and the Arizona Cardinals fired Jonathan Gannon. While their results as head coaches weren’t great, both have strong backgrounds as defensive coaches.
Gannon, 43, was the Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator from 2021 to 2022. In that period, the Eagles’ defense was eighth in EPA/play and 19th in success rate.
Morris is a little bit older, 49, and has much more NFL experience. Initially, he was promoted from defensive backs coach directly to head coach by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers back in 2009.
After that, he had several jobs as a position coach, pass game coordinator on both sides of the ball, and assistant head coach. Curiously, though, his first opportunity as an NFL defensive coordinator only came in 2021 for the Los Angeles Rams. They were 14th in EPA/play and 17th in success rate in that timeframe. The Rams won the Super Bowl after the 2021 season, and Morris was praised due to his ability to adapt and keep them running a version of Brandon Staley’s defensive philosophy that had worked in 2020.
There are several examples of former head coaches that worked out as defensive coordinators — Philadelphia Eagles’ Vic Fangio and Denver Broncos’ Vance Joseph are two obvious ones. And if LaFleur wants to lean on experience, the market got materially better over the past two days.
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