Then-coach Mike McCarthy’s decision to hire Capers — one of the NFL’s most accomplished defensive minds, with head-coaching stints with the Carolina Panthers and Houston Texans and a resumé that included being one of the founding fathers of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ famed “Blitzburgh” fire zone blitz scheme — proved transformative.
In Year 2 of Capers’ 3-4 scheme, with Capers deploying future Pro Football Hall of Famer Charles Woodson in every way imaginable and maxing out the talents of safety Nick Collins, outside linebacker Clay Matthews, defensive tackle B.J. Raji, nose tackle Ryan Pickett and defensive end Cullen Jenkins, the Packers defense ranked No. 2 in the league in scoring defense and No. 5 in total defense in 2010.
Capers not only became the longest-tenured defensive coordinator in franchise history, holding the job until Pettine replaced him following the 2017 season, but he had another championship-caliber unit in 2014, before the team’s historic meltdown during the second half of a gut-wrenching NFC Championship Game loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
But unlike then-GM Ted Thompson did when Capers arrived, Gutekunst doesn’t anticipate having to retool the defensive personnel to account for the philosophical shift from Barry’s keep-everything-in-front-of-you umbrella scheme to Hafley’s system, which is influenced by Pettine and New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh, who was the San Francisco 49ers’ defensive coordinator when Hafley was their defensive backs coach.
As he gets to know our personnel more — obviously he’s been in college and working at Boston College the last four years — I think his thoughts will kind of work more towards exactly what he wants to do.
But (after) our initial conversations, and obviously Matt had a lot more than I did, (I’m) just really excited about some of his thoughts and where he could take our roster.”
Although the team announced his hiring on Wednesday, Hafley has not yet been introduced publicly, and LaFleur has yet to discuss his reasoning for hiring Hafley.
It’s possible the team is holding off on having Hafley speak with reporters until the full defensive staff is set. When LaFleur hired Barry in February 2021, he kept the defensive position coaches intact; one source said this week there are expected to be some changes to the defensive staff this time around.
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