There are certainly multiple areas where the Green Bay Packers defense can get better. After all, Joe Barry's unit was 27th in DVOA last year, even with so much investment and projected talent on that side of the ball.
Perhaps, no other area has more room for improvement though than blitz packages. With a solid and disruptive defensive front, the Packers were good at generating pressure in 2023 — seventh in the entire NFL with a 4-man rush. When blitzing, though, Green Bay created only a percentage point more pressure, making them fall all the way to 29th in the league. That's why they didn't blitz much, obviously, but it's something new defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley can work on.
Looking at the chart above, you can see what Matt LaFleur wants to build and why he hired Hafley as the defensive coordinator to replace Barry. Two of the top defenses generating pressure both when blitzing and when not are the San Francisco 49ers and the New York Jets.
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While the 49ers had an underwhelming experience with Steve Wilks , it was still a strong unit with concepts that Kyle Shanahan imposes — and that were already in place when Hafley was there as a defensive backs coach. At that time, the defensive coordinator was Robert Saleh, now the head coach and top defensive mind for the Jets.
"We're going to look to create havoc in the backfield," said Jason Rebrovich, a former pass rush specialist who got promoted to defensive line coach. "Every down, we're looking to penetrate and make something big happen."
How they can do it
The easiest and most usual path to send extra bodies into pass rush is with the off-ball linebackers. Jeff Hafley's track record at Boston College shows he has a lot of options in his toolbox.
On the Packers, that's part of the reason why they are expanding Quay Walker's role . Last year, he aligned closer to the line of scrimmage on 43 snaps. Overall, he finished the season with 15 total pressures, up from 12 in his rookie season.
The team also added Edgerrin Cooper in the second round of the draft. In his last year at Texas A&M, the young linebacker was used as a pass rusher on 83 snaps, more than 13% of his overall defensive snaps. He had 10 quarterback pressures in 2023.
His explosiveness coming as a blitzer is something Jeff Hafley will clearly be able to take advantage of.
Creativity
While off-ball linebacker blitzes are easier to execute, Jeff Hafley can certainly go beyond that as a play designer. At Boston College, he liked to call some weakside safety blitzes. They are not as frequent, but it's also much harder for a quarterback to foresee them.
It's not a coincidence why the Packers signed Xavier McKinney in free agency. Even as a defensive back, he had 12 total pressures in his last two years with the New York Giants. His usage closer to the line of scrimmage, what PFF defines as a DL alignment, jumped from 56 to 82 defensive snaps from 2022 to 2023.
Hafley is already excited about what he can do with McKinney on the roster.
"It's our job to put him in position to make a lot of things happen," Hafley said about the veteran safety. "It's been fun to see everything that he can do and how quickly he can learn."
No system is perfect, and a blitz-heavy defense can get exposed as well. But having the ability to send extra pressure and actually getting home is imperative for a defense built around the premise of affecting the opposing quarterback, and Jeff Hafley seems well equipped to make it happen in Green Bay.
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