Following Joe Barry’s sack by head coach Matt LA Fleur, it has been a difficult task owing to much market competition. As it stands two best candidates to be announced are Jim Leonhard and Al Harris
There hasn’t been a better time to recruit a defensive coordinator in a long time. Since firing their coach during or right after the season, eight NFL teams were in the market for new head coaches.
All but two positions have been filled, but many of the new recruits are just getting started with their assistant coaching staff, which means there are a lot of good coaches around waiting for their next opportunity. coach matt lafleur, who fired defensive coordinator joe barry and strength and conditioning coordinator chris gizzi this week, has a pretty broad pool of applicants. Let’s stick with the defensive coordinator, who lafleur must find in order to propel his team to super bowl glory.
After lafleur’s team finished the second half of the season with one of the league’s best offenses, he needs to find someone who can elevate the defense to a similar standard and make the packers one of the league’s best teams. It may be more important to identify who he wants. Lafleur watched teams gallop right through his fronts for per-gain averages of 4.42 (2021), 4.95 (’22), and 4.69 (’23) yards during barry’s tenure, using a soft approach based on not giving up the long ball. The packers finished ninth in total yards in ’21, 17th in ’22, and 17th in ’23. during those three seasons, the packers gave up 46 touchdowns on the field, placing eighth in total yards in ’21, 11th in ’22, and 23rd in ’23.
They were an awfully poor red-zone scoring defense, allowing opponents to score 66% of the time (28th in the league), with 26 touchdown passes without interceptions. The unit played better until later in the year when the quarterbacks’ caliber wasn’t as good and their offense began pressed opponents to keep up their scoring pace. Lafleur began spending more time in defensive meetings to help iron out the weekly strategy, which coincided with the change.
The key to the team’s late success was to simplify the defense and allow some of the team’s best athletes to do their thing. “it was all the work, the work through the week,” defensive end kenny clark said. “it starts with us knowing what to do and working with the coaches and trying to figure out a strategy. Later in the year, i felt like everyone was firing on all cylinders as far as the defense and knowing where they should be. “and in the future, we should be making sure we don’t fall behind in the regular season.” lafleur has a variety of choices for the field.
one group includes candidates who have been only defensive coordinators. Ejiro evero (carolina, denver) is one of them. Jim leonhard (wisconsin), don “wink” martindale (giants), and mike caldwell (jaguars) are among the players on the team. When barry was hired, evero and leonhard were the finalists and could be considered again.
They have different defenses, and lafleur may want to have a say in which scheme they run. then there are assistant coaches who are waiting for their opportunity as a coordinator. Those who have already applied for positions in the league include baltimore defensive backs coach dennard wilson (giants), tennessee assistant head coach/defensive line terrell williams (bears), tennessee defensive backs coach chris harris (jaguars, bears), baltimore defensive backs coach bob babich (giants), miami defensive backs coach anthony campanile (giants), and denver defensive backs coach christian parker (new england).
Buffalo defensive line coach eric washington, new york jets safeties coach marquand manuel, houston passing game coordinator cory undlin, dallas defensive line coach al harris, and san francisco defensive line coach kris kocurek are among those who may be of note.
