Packer Central

Packers Weren’t Tackling Dummies in 2024

According to Next Gen Stats, the Green Bay Packers were one of the best tackling teams in the NFL. Here are the numbers, and the correlation between winning and losing.

Bill Huber

Philadelphia Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert (88) is tackled by Green Bay Packers safety Xavier McKinney and others.
Philadelphia Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert (88) is tackled by Green Bay Packers safety Xavier McKinney and others. / Bill Streicher-Imagn Images
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – The world’s best defensive scheme means nothing if the ball-carrier breaks a tackle to turn a run for no gain into a touchdown.

One reason why the Green Bay Packers’ defense played so well in Year 1 under coordinator Jeff Hafley is because of how they tackled.

This year, Next Gen Stats helped create a new model called tackle probability. (You can read about its genesis here.) The Packers finished seventh; the top nine teams all reached the playoffs. The bottom 11 teams did not.

Hafley preached getting as many defenders as possible to the football. That way, if one defender missed a tackle, another defender was right there to clean up the mess.

“Really it’s ultimately about tackling, swarming, getting many hats to the football, and our guys have really embraced that style of play,” coach Matt LaFleur said before the December game at Detroit.

It worked. According to Next Gen Stats, the Packers allowed the fifth-fewest yards after a missed tackle.

“Hafley has clearly put together a connected, fundamentally sound unit in Green Bay,” the authors wrote.

The strong tackling was a key reason why the Packers played their best run defense in more than a decade. The Packers finished third with 3.96 yards allowed per rushing attempt. From 2019 through 2023, the first five seasons under LaFleur, they were last.

“They’re setting edges, they’re forcing the ball back inside, they’re getting off blocks and then we’re tackling and we’re running to the ball and there’s multiple people to the ball,” Hafley said before the last-season game at Detroit, when the Packers missed only four tackles.

“When you turn on our tape right now and when you freeze it, you see that. You see a lot of guys around the football. And then you’re not afraid, right? If I have an open-field tackle and I know eight other guys are coming, I’m going to take my shot because I know if I miss, it’s going to be bang, bang, bang, we got three or four other guys there.”

Pro Football Focus has its own grading of missed tackles. The Packers were fourth this year after being 15th in 2023.

According to PFF, three Packers defenders missed more than 10 tackles: linebackers Edgerrin Cooper (15), Isaiah McDuffie (11) and Eric Wilson (11).

Using PFF’s data and 350 snaps as the minimum, here are where the Packers ranked in missed-tackle percentage at all five position groups:

Of 93 interior defensive linemen, Kenny Clark ranked 33rd (9.8 percent), TJ Slaton ranked 42nd (12.1 percent), Devonte Wyatt ranked 52nd (13.6 percent) and Karl Brooks ranked 64th (16.7 percent).

Of 96 edge defenders, Rashan Gary ranked eighth (7.0 percent), followed by Lukas Van Ness (38th; 13.3 percent) and Kingsley Enagbare (43rd; 13.6 percent). They didn’t play enough snaps but Brenton Cox missed zero tackles in 160 snaps and Arron Mosby missed two tackles (22.2 percent) in 150 snaps.

Of 78 linebackers, Quay Walker ranked 15th (8.3 percent), followed by Isaiah McDuffie (29th; 10.5 percent), Eric Wilson (64th; 15.1 percent) and Edgerrin Cooper (68th; 15.9 percent).

Of 110 cornerbacks, Eric Stokes ranked eighth (6.7 percent), followed by Keisean Nixon (36th; 10.2 percent), Carrington Valentine (77th; 16.2 percent) and Jaire Alexander (97th; 20.0 percent).

Of 92 safeties, Xavier McKinney continued his history of terrific tackling by ranking 10th (5.7 percent). He was followed by Javon Bullard (38th; 11.0 percent) and Evan Williams (56th; 14.0 percent).

“If teams want throw screens and throw checkdowns all day, have at it,” McKinney said before a blowout win over the Dolphins. “We understand that now and I think we’re doing a better job as we keep playing of being better tacklers and making sure everybody is rallying to the ball. And when we’re doing that, we get off the field pretty smoothly.”

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.