Blogging The Boys
The Dallas Cowboys will be hard-pressed to move the ball this week when they face the Green Bay Packers. Playing without CeeDee Lamb is a big reason why, in addition to missing two starters on the offensive line, but another big reason is this Green Bay defense led by Jeff Hafley.
Much of the discourse around the Packers defense has (rightfully) centered on Micah Parsons. The blockbuster trade to acquire the league’s best pass rusher happened exactly one month ago from Sunday night, when Parsons returns to Dallas to face the team he grew up rooting for.
While Parsons has certainly upgraded this defense, things were going in the right direction already under Hafley, who joined the team as their defensive coordinator last year. His predecessor, Joe Barry, was frequently maligned by fans for being far too passive in his schemes, running concepts very similar to what Dallas now runs under Matt Eberflus. Of note: Barry and Eberflus share the same mentor, Rod Marinelli, and Barry is actually the son-in-law to Marinelli.
Barry’s defense hit a new low in 2023, though, finishing the year ranked 24th in EPA/play allowed and 27th in defensive DVOA. It prompted a change, and Hafley was so eager for the job that he left his post as the Boston College. The change was felt immediately: last year, Green Bay was fourth in EPA/play allowed and seventh in defensive DVOA.
Hafley is a disciple of Greg Schiano, coaching under him at both Rutgers and with the Buccaneers, and he also spent considerable time working with current Lions senior defensive assistant Jim O’Neil, who studied under Rex Ryan and Mike Pettine for a lengthy period of time. Both of those influences – Schiano and Ryan – are very present in Hafley’s defense.
At its core, Hafley’s defense is a traditional four-man front that focuses on gap penetration, rather than two-gap principles, and primarily operates out of a single high safety look. Stylistically, it looks very similar to what Dan Quinn runs, and matches a lot of what Schiano has built his career off of as well. But Hafley has also baked in some of the disguises and exotic pressure packages that Ryan built his name on as well.
Working with a single-high safety structure, Hafley naturally ran a lot of Cover 3 and Cover 1 last year, but he surprisingly out-paced the league in Cover 2 zone usage as well. Most of the time Green Bay ran Cover 2, though, it was an inverted form; that means the traditional players in the zone responsibilities were switched up, which allowed Hafley to efficiently get his players into this look post-snap without having to show two high safeties pre-snap.
Hafley also made extensive use of simulated pressures. At Boston College, Hafley’s defenses blitzed frequently, but Green Bay finished second-to-last in blitz rate last season. Despite that, they were eighth in the league in sacks. That’s because Hafley used a simulated pressure – showing a blitz and then only rushing...
