Boston College Head Coach Jeff Hafley is Packers New DC

[Arthur Penske]

44 minutes ago, Lodestar said:

Damn why didn't we just hire Michael Rodney to be our DC?

Because he’s a D BAG?

[Arthur Penske]

2 hours ago, WiscFan3 said:

 

I know it’s not that close of a last name but I really feel like since we hired him on Rick Astley’s bday this guy is never gonna do the following to us on defense:

[KManX89]

15 hours ago, craig said:

This is dumb, but a real question.  Suppose a team plays ≥80% nickel, and is predominantly 4-2.  And of the non-nickel plays, a bunch of those are short-yardage.  We were a predominantly 4-2 nickel team, and I assume we'll be a predominantly 4-2 nickel team.  One perspective is that "4-3/3-4 means totally nothing; you're playing 4-2 mostly anyway, who cares?  It's meaningless."  Is that true?  Or is that overly simplistic?   

Like, I'm wondering is that is overly simplistic, and if there is perhaps some impact how you play your nickel whether you're coming from a 3-4 versus 4-3 perspective?  Does a "4-3" team use it's box guys differently when playing nickel than a "3-4" team does?  Like, even in 4-2 nickel, would a "3-4" team drop it's edges more, or something?  Even if both are playing 4-2 nickel all the time anyway, are there still some differences in philosophy or spacing or approach between the two?  Or is it really truly a totally insignificant distinction?  

 

Actually, we were a predominantly 2-4 nickel since our edge guys usually played stand up. Granted, it’s effectively a 4-2, but stances from your edges tell you what kind of nickel you’re running (and that’s pretty much the only difference between a 2-4 and 4-2, you get none of the disguised look benefits from a base 3-4 in nickel since they know where the pressures will be coming from).

I also wonder if this frees up LVN to play DT on some snaps like Armstead in SF.  

[Sandy]

16 hours ago, craig said:

This is dumb, but a real question.  Suppose a team plays ≥80% nickel, and is predominantly 4-2.  And of the non-nickel plays, a bunch of those are short-yardage.  We were a predominantly 4-2 nickel team, and I assume we'll be a predominantly 4-2 nickel team.  One perspective is that "4-3/3-4 means totally nothing; you're playing 4-2 mostly anyway, who cares?  It's meaningless."  Is that true?  Or is that overly simplistic?   

Like, I'm wondering is that is overly simplistic, and if there is perhaps some impact how you play your nickel whether you're coming from a 3-4 versus 4-3 perspective?  Does a "4-3" team use it's box guys differently when playing nickel than a "3-4" team does?  Like, even in 4-2 nickel, would a "3-4" team drop it's edges more, or something?  Even if both are playing 4-2 nickel all the time anyway, are there still some differences in philosophy or spacing or approach between the two?  Or is it really truly a totally insignificant distinction?  

 

It's significant in some ways. NFL teams are only in the nickel about 2/3 of the time - and usually it's gonna be a pretty similar set-up, with 2 edge, 2 linebackers and 2 DLs.

It's easy for a lot of fans to gloss over the final 1/3 of the snaps, but in those snaps we should expect a high percentage of plays where the extra front-seven player is a LB instead of DL. 

[craig]

Thanks for input, guys. 

Sandy, last year it appeared that the Packers used 3 DL on 20% of their plays, and 5 secondary on >80% of their plays?  So we may have been out-of-nickel less than 1/3?  Perhaps that's something that will adjust a little.  My guess is that a bunch of the 3-DL snaps were probably in short-yardage situations.  So if we had 20% snaps in 3 DL sets, I'd guess that half of those 3-DL sets were probably short yardage?  (I'm just making that up, no stats to confirm).  

So yeah, *IF* even apart from short-yardage Hafley was to use non-nickel 1/3 of the time, that would be a very significant shift.  And for sure how you scheme those plays would be pretty significant.  

[Chili]

12 hours ago, WiscFan3 said:

I was actually surprised by this. I assumed Downard would get a "promotion" and then we would find a replacement for his old spot.

I had a look at Ansley's previous stops.  He was under Brandon Staley 3-4 for the last three years and even became his coordinator for one year. Prior to that he had a one year stay in Oakland but the majority of his time was in college, most notably with Alabama and Tennessee which I (again) assume all used 4-3 defences. I assume with his knowledge of both systems he can help our DB transition to playing 4-3.

There's no obvious links to LaFleur or Hafley but he does know Bisaccia from Oakland.

I guess with Staley not landing anywhere, Guenther and Gruden being out of football he has no obvious NFL coaching trees to fall back on. In college Saban has retired so his options must've been quite limited. I imagine he must've applied for the Packers open position and probably with a little help from Bisaccia he was able to secure this gig with us.

Edited February 7 by Chili

[Norm]

Every chili coaching post be like

 

[Chili]

🤣 You're not wrong.

[craig]

Ansley may be another reminder that good coaches look good only when their players are good.  Chargers' defensive DVOA was 26th, one spot ahead of Packers at 27.  My recall from the Chargers game was that their secondary in particular looked awful, seemed like we had guys open pretty easily. 

I assume it will be up to Gute and anti-injury-luck to give Ansley enough talent to get better results next year.   Ansley isn't smart enough to make bad players look average.  

[craig]

Packers have some good history with hiring recently-unsuccessful coaches, actually.  MLF's offense in Tennessee wasn't good at all, but he's been very successful.  I think the year before we hired McCarthy, his 49ers had both a bad record and a low-ranked offense. 

Hopefully Ansley and Hafley will both do great with Packers, if they are given some competitive talent to work with. 

Hopefully Ansley will just have some magic to make Stokes' foot and ankle 100% and durable.  Would be so cool if Stokes unexpectedly popped up as healthy and good.  I recall during the front 2/3 of his rookie year, I thought he was a terrific cover guy, really good at mirroring and covering.  I felt like he kinda got worse late in season as Gray started King-ing him and making him play soft-cushion and zone, thought coaching kinda made him worse instead of better.  Probably he'll never be what we thought he might become during that rookie season, but man it would be a sweet surprise if he did bounce back and become good after all.    

[thrILL!]

4 hours ago, Chili said:

the majority of his time was in college, most notably with Alabama and Tennessee which I (again) assume all used 4-3 defences. I assume with his knowledge of both systems he can help our DB transition to playing 4-3.

Both ran 3-4 at the time he was there. 

[Norm]

15 hours ago, Arthur Penske said:

Because he’s a D BAG?

He looks like a pedo 

[incognito_man]

2 hours ago, Norm said:

He looks like a pedo 

Ok, QAaron

[Chili]

This is a great video about the flaws of Fangio's defensive scheme. It was uploaded a year ago and has aged very well since then. Worth a watch if you got 25 mins of your time.

The comments section is very eye opening, plenty of people who know their stuff.

I came across one comment was about the 4-2-5 :

Quote

Simple explanation: classic 4-2-5 defensive scheme designed to bring a base 4 man rush while in nickel. Georgia Bulldogs have been running it for years, and that's part of the reason why they've been so dominant (they force teams to beat them on the ground, where they have a physical advantage). 4-2-5 blitzes in passing situations are outright DEADLY because they can bring pressure from multiple creative angles, while the 5 DB look prevents easy reads for the Quarterback.

The counter to a 4-2-5 is to NOT run a spread offense. Motioning for a 1 TE set or even a 1 TE + a lead/trap blocker set creates a massive advantage where a big man is blocking a defensive back, and it is extremely easy for the RB to get into the secondary and break off a good run.

Sounds like the new defence will definitely make life harder for QBs but teams who have the right type of offence will cause us some trouble. That's where situational adjustments will come into play, something Barry was never good at and hopefully Hafley will be able to do better.

It goes to show why the same problems just kept happening no matter how many first rounders were added to the defense and it explains how we could beat the Chiefs and Cowboys soundly, but struggle with the Giants and the Panthers. We were setup to beat superstar QBs, but we more often faced journey-men, checkdown guys.

Edited February 8 by Chili

[OneTwoSixFive]

Haven't seen any postings by @MrBobGray  for a while. I'd be interested to hear his take.