Coordinator Changes Add Layer to Packers-Eagles Showdown

The Green Bay Packers have a new defensive coordinator. The Philadelphia Eagles have new offensive and defensive coordinators. They’ll add even mystery to the great unknown that is Week 1.

Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley is shown during training camp. / Tork Mason / USA TODAY NETWORK

GREEN BAY, Wis. – In NFL history, the Green Bay Packers’ Matt LaFleur ranks 11th and the Philadelphia Eagles’ Nick Sirianni is 14th all-time in winning percentage.

However, both coaches made dramatic changes on their coaching staffs in hopes of pushing their team over the Super Bowl finish line. Those new hires will be at the forefront of Friday night’s season-opening showdown in Brazil.

LaFleur hired Jeff Hafley as defensive coordinator after three underperforming seasons by Joe Barry.

Sirianni replaced both of his containers. While LaFleur went outside the box in pulling Hafley out of Boston College, Sirianni went with two of the biggest names in the business with Kellen Moore to run the offense and Vic Fangio to pilot the defense.

The fresh faces will add an extra layer of intrigue to a Week 1 matchup of Super Bowl contenders.

Every offseason, coordinators around the league dream up new schemes, steal plays from other teams and adapt their playbook to their personnel changes.

When the preseason comes, all the good stuff is shoved aside and saved to be sprung on unsuspecting opponents during the opening weeks of the season.

With new coordinators, the schematic mystery is heightened.

“You don’t want to find yourself Week 1 looking at too much and you’re starting to see ghosts and things that aren’t really what they’re going to do,” Hafley said, “because it’s Week 1 and who knows how much they’ve changed, how much they’re going to rely on what they’ve done in the past, how much he’s going to change with the players that he has.”

From the perspective of Philadelphia’s offense vs. Green Bay’s defense, it should be Advantage, Green Bay on the Mystery-O-Meter.

Moore was the Dallas Cowboys’ offensive coordinator from 2019 through 2022 before taking over the Los Angeles Chargers’ offense in 2023.

There are enough similarities between Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert and Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts for Hafley to at least have a rough idea of how the Eagles will attack his defense.

Moore, on the other hand, probably will be wasting his time in checking out Boston College’s defenses.

“I hope they’re watching a lot of different stuff,” Hafley said. “I’m not going to tell them whether they should or shouldn’t be watching that stuff. I really don’t know what they’d be watching, to be honest with you. They’ve got to figure that part out.”

On the other side of the ball, the Eagles will have the Mystery-O-Meter advantage as the esteemed Fangio lines up a Packers offense led for a sixth season by LaFleur and coordinated for a second season by Adam Stenavich.

However, it’s not as if the Packers won’t have new wrinkles on offense. And Fangio, who is entering his 25th season as an NFL head coach or defensive coordinator, has tendencies and defensive staples. Barry is from Fangio’s coaching tree, so there will be some similar looks to what Love faced on the practice field.

“I think there’s a lot of unknowns come Week 1,” LaFleur said. “First of all, I think Vic is one of one. There are a lot of guys who’ve tried to copy and emulate his scheme, and some guys have had success, but not to the level he’s had.

“He’s one of the best in the game, and so it’s going to be a great challenge. He does a great job of being able to take what you want to do and take it away. He keeps you off-balance. He’s got enough within his scheme. And you couple that with the fact that these guys have a lot of good players on the defensive side of the ball, particularly up front, it poses quite the challenge.”

The 66-year-old Fangio was ousted after one year as defensive coordinator in Miami. He spent the previous three seasons as coach of the Broncos.

“You know he likes to send a lot of exotic blitzes,” said running back Josh Jacobs, who had 468 rushing yards in five games against Fangio’s defenses in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

From one perspective, defensive coordinators who will face the Packers to start the season – Fangio and the Eagles on Friday, Gus Bradley and the Colts the following Sunday, Dennard Wilson and the Titans in Week 3 and so on – will have the advantage of having the entire offseason to study Love.

From another perspective, Love should be a better player in every form and fashion with a combined 634 regular-season and postseason passing attempts last year. Plus, LaFleur, Stenavich and Love had the whole offseason to build upon what went right and either improve or scrap what went wrong.

“There’ll be a couple similarities to what they’ve done before,” Love said of facing an Eagles defense he attacked during his national reintroduction in 2022. “Obviously, a lot of new faces from a couple years ago, especially in the secondary. But it’s similar to that kind of style we’ve had before. We’ll see. But first game, you have to be ready for some stuff you haven’t seen before.”

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Here are the unit matchups, and who has the edge in those matchups, from @JacobWestendorf. ⬇️https://t.co/jNX7niZBvM

— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) September 2, 2024

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