Pete Dougherty: Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley must get more creative with his pass rush

GREEN BAY – Four games into the season, new Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley has a lot more information about his players than he did a month ago.

Among the lessons is that the Packers ’ pass rush along the front four isn’t as disruptive as he’d projected going into the season or as good as it looked sacking the Tennessee Titans ’ struggling second-year quarterback Will Levis eight times last week. Going forward, Hafley probably will have to be quicker working in blitzes and unexpected combinations of four-man rushes than he was against the Minnesota Vikings .

Hafley stuck almost exclusively with a conventional four-man rush in the first half and got minimal pressure as Sam Darnold carved up his defense while putting up touchdowns on four of the Vikings’ first five possessions.

On 19 first-half pass calls (including three wiped out by penalty and a Darnold scramble), Hafley called 15 conventional four-man rushes and blitzed only four times, really three because one was a pass from the 2-yard line and Hafley had five defensive linemen on the field.

The Packers rarely got pressure on Darnold, and he finished the half with a 140.6 rating (11-for-15, 136 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions). On one of the only plays in the first half the Packers pressured Darnold, a standard four-man rush, Lukas Van Ness ran a stunt, chased him out of the pocket and induced Darnold into a bad decision: An across-the-body-throw on the move that linebacker Isaiah McDuffie dropped for what would have been a big interception on the game’s first series.

In the second half, Hafley didn’t go particularly blitz heavy, but he mixed in some fake Double-A-gap blitzes, along with rushes where he sent a cornerback or linebacker and dropped a defensive lineman in coverage. On one of the latter, linebacker Quay Walker sacked Darnold, and on another cornerback Keisean Nixon had a big strip sack the Packers recovered.

This isn’t to suggest the solution to the Packers’ pass-rush issues is to go blitz crazy. Blitzing carries its own set of risks for getting gashed in coverage if you don’t get home.

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But Walker is improved as a blitzer and Nixon has shown explosiveness off the edge. Also, rookie linebacker Edgerrin Cooper looks especially explosive as a blitzer — that was one of the reasons for drafting him in the second round — and could become a threat offenses have to plan around with a bump in his playing time.

But until the Packers defensive line proves otherwise, it’s looking like Hafley needs to be ready to mix in some alternate rushes a lot earlier in the game than he did Sunday.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Pete Dougherty: Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley must get more creative with his pass rush