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While the Green Bay Packers’ defense finished as the 4th best defense in 2024, it’s not hard to imagine how they could make improvements heading into 2025. They needed pass-rush help, and they addressed it at the end of the preseason by trading for Micah Parsons. Through three weeks, the chips fell into place and look to be rounding into one of the league’s top units again.
They’re currently ranked 3rd best in the NFL. They are already reaping the benefits of what a truly elite pass rush can do. One area where this is highlighted is in their 3rd down defense. So far, they are 5% better than last season at getting stops on 3rd down. They held the Browns to 4-for-13 in Week 3.
Adding Parsons to a defense that already has a lot of post-snap coverage rotation significantly muddies the pictures for opposing quarterbacks. We covered Parsons’s first snap as a pass rusher here, but this is an example of how his presence, combined with the post-snap coverage rotation, clogs up the quarterback’s processing ability.
Hafley’s favored way to muddy the picture is to play a non-traditional Tampa-2 coverage post-snap and they can get there from multiple alignments. Here, they’re showing single high coverage pre-snap with pressure indicators.
The post snap coverage rotates into Tampa-2 with the corner bailing to the deep halves and Goff looking left but coming off the read to the left when he sees it’s 4-over-3 for the defense. By the time he comes back to the right, the dig route from the single receiver side would be open versus Tampa-2, but he didn’t have time.
The rotation from single high, where the best read is, to Tampa-2 muddied up the picture and allowed the pass rush to get home and force a short throw for a loss. The same post snap rotation confused Goff later in that game on his interception.
Here, the Lions are in the high red zone on third down. The Packers matched with their nickel defense again. Goff sees a single high safety, and he sees his best receiver, Amon Ra St. Brown, being pressed in the slot. Based on the pre-snap, it looks like man coverage.
But everything changes post-snap. Safety Evan Williams rotates down with the corners sinking deep again. Safety Xavier McKinney is going to rotate inside to the middle hook zone. This is a lot for a quarterback to digest. He clearly doesn’t see Williams rotate down and thinks he has St. Brown for a clean throw, but he doesn’t have it. Williams picks it off.
The blending of the coverage rotation and the pass rush can be an effective way to drag out a passing down in a critical high-leverage situation. If the pass rush can’t get home, the back-end coverage can ensure that it eventually will and force a checkdown.
With the potential for up to seven pass rushers here, Jayden Daniels has to think about the progression post-snap while seeing something...
