Packers DC Jeff Hafley talks personnel, scheme in new interview

“We’re get upfield as fast as we can,” said Hafley about Green Bay’s plan for their defensive linemen.

New Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley recently sat down with the Packers’ Larry McCarren to discuss his team’s personnel, mentality and defensive scheme just about a week before the 2024 NFL Draft. With organized team activities already underway, Hafley has finally been able to coach up his unit first-hand as an NFL defensive coordinator, but we aren’t yet fully sure what we’ll be watching on Sundays this season.

On the Packers’ defensive personnel

We’ve got really good players. Very talented players. I think the D-line has depth, and they have some guys who played their best football last year. The same thing I see at the linebacker position. I know Quay and McDuff have kind of been the guys at the end that were playing. And in the backend, you know, to have maybe the best corner in football.

One of the more surprising quotes from here is that Hafley believes the linebacker unit has depth. Generally, most fans believe that linebacker and safety are the squad’s two biggest positions of need, despite the fact that they’re unlikely to spend a first-round pick at either spot just due to the nature of this year’s draft crop.

At the moment, the Packers’ three starting linebackers in a 4-3 base, which should be played more than Joe Barry’s 3-4 base as they’ll have more speed on the field, are Quay Walker, Isaiah McDuffie and Eric Wilson. McDuffie was a part-time starter, mostly as an injury replacement until he started taking over run-down looks from De’Vondre Campbell at the end of the 2023 season. Wilson, meanwhile, has mostly been a reserve and special teams player for the Packers.

How his defense will be different

We’re going to attack. I told the players, “I want to lead the NFL in effort.” I want to lead the NFL in how hard we play, and I want to lead the NFL in taking the ball away.

Forcing turnovers was an emphasis for Hafley throughout the interview. He stated, “[Turnover] is the priority: We want to take the ball away,” to McCarren. He also said they stress turnovers by prioritizing them. “It’s not just talk.”

Head coach Matt LaFleur has mentioned several times that the Packers will be moving away from Barry’s match-based defense for a more “vision-based” defense in the secondary. The hope is that by playing defenders in looser coverage with eyes on the quarterback, they’ll be able to bait quarterbacks into different routes that defensive backs will be able to break on the ball for.

On top of that, Hafley also mentioned that the new plan for the defensive line is to “get upfield as fast as we can.” Gone are the days when the Packers planned to pack the box with interior linemen. Now, the goal is to create penetration and spill everything to the sideline, if it manages to get there.

If you’d like to watch the full interview with Hafley, you can find it linked below: