Preston Smith called a future hall of famer to evaluate new Packers defensive coordinator
Veteran edge rusher Preston Smith is ready to be… a full-time edge rusher. After handling two 3-4 defenses over his time in Green Bay, Smith will play a more classic 4-3 scheme, and that will allow him to focus on what he does best. Mostly, dropping into coverage, facing wide receivers one-on-one, and the cornerback […]
Veteran edge rusher Preston Smith is ready to be… a full-time edge rusher. After handling two 3-4 defenses over his time in Green Bay, Smith will play a more classic 4-3 scheme, and that will allow him to focus on what he does best. Mostly, dropping into coverage, facing wide receivers one-on-one, and the cornerback jokes are over.
"Yeah, man. Finally, I'm out here rushing more, and I get to get after the quarterback a whole lot more," Preston Smith said during Packers mandatory minicamp. "I just love the system."
And the offseason work hasn't been the first contact Preston Smith has had with new defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley and what he likes to run. When the Packers decided to hire the coach away from Boston College, Smith called future Hall of Fame cornerback Richard Sherman, who was coached by Hafley with the San Francisco 49ers, to understand and evaluate what was to come.
"I was already impressed with Jeff Hafley," Smith recalled. "Because I called a friend when he first signed who knew him very well, and that's Richard Sherman. He spoke highly of him. Sherm's a good friend of mine. If one of my friends loves you, I love you. I was always impressed with Jeff Hafley and his system and what they were telling me about it before we went to camp."
Dropping into coverage is something natural for outside linebackers in a 3-4 defense. Under Joe Barry last season, he did it 41 times. And it was even significantly fewer times than he did in his first season with the Packers in 2019, under Mike Pettine, when he dropped 133 times. That being said, a transition to 4-3 will be helpful in that regard — it's one of the few areas where there is still a real difference between the formations, considering most teams play nickel coverage most of the time anyway.
The offseason with OTAs and minicamp has been useful for the Packers players to execute on the field what they had been learning on tablets. And Preston Smith is even more impressed with what he's seen.
"Now, actually running those plays and getting out there on the field with these guys, I’m loving the system a whole lot more," Smith added.
Background
Jeff Hafley was the San Francisco 49ers' defensive backs coach from 2016 to 2018. In his last year there, he overlapped with Richard Sherman, who played in San Francisco from 2018 to 2020. Hafley helped Sherman learn Robert Saleh's scheme, even though at the time it was closer to what Saleh and Sherman had experienced with the Seattle Seahawks.
Years later, Saleh, Hafley, Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans and new 49ers defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen are all running modified versions of that.
In Green Bay, Hafley will have an opportunity to show his style can work in the NFL after five seasons in college — one as a co-defensive coordinator at Ohio State, and four as a head coach at Boston College.
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