The blueprint for Jeff Hafley has always been clear, and it’s worked fairly well in his nearly two years as the Green Bay Packers’ defensive coordinator. One of the main premises is getting to the quarterback by rushing just four and not blitzing too often.
That was working fine and dandy until Micah Parsons‘ season-ending injury. Hafley needed to adapt, and he did against the Chicago Bears. That can’t change moving forward, despite one big hiccup.
Leading by a touchdown and needing one stop on a fourth-and-four with less than 30 seconds to go on Saturday, Hafley dialed up a Cover 0 blitz. It wasn’t the first time Hafley pulled that card out of his sleeve in the game, Green Bay’s first without Parsons this year.
A breakdown in communication between cornerbacks Nate Hobbs and Keisean Nixon allowed Jahdae Walker to roam free in the back corner of the end zone. The blitz called by Hafley still nearly got home, and quarterback Caleb Williams had to throw off-platform because of it. He narrowly completed the pass, and we all know what happened after that in overtime.
Hafley would prefer not to blitz. Green Bay is 30th in the NFL in blitz percentage at 17.8% and and 26th in heavy box rate at 20.6%.
It was universally understood that those numbers would both have to tick up with Parsons out for the year. To Hafley’s credit, he emptied the clip against Chicago.
Giving up a touchdown late in that spot in the fourth quarter can be jarring. It could drive Hafley away from repeating the decision to run Cover 0 in similar spots. Still, he shouldn’t.
Green Bay struggled mightily getting to the quarterback while rushing four a year ago. Parsons solved a lot of those problems this year. With him gone, it’s virtually the same group as a year ago trying to solve that same riddle. Hafley didn’t wait around to see how it would look. He blitzed plenty against the Bears. That must continue.
Banking on this pass rush — one which has its current leader in Rashan Gary going on eight games in a row without a sack or tackle for loss — isn’t a wise move.
Hopefully, the miscommunication between Hobbs and Nixon can be resolved via dialogue about what was supposed to happen during the play. Hobbs said afterwards it was just that, a miscommunication.
“It was just miscommunication, that’s all,” said Hobbs. “Y’all seen (it). It was just a good throw and a good catch, bro. That’s all. It’s football. Just toss up, catch, he made a heck of a play.”
The blitz did its part. There was immediate pressure on Williams, who darted a couple of steps to his right before chucking it to the corner to a wide-open Walker. We will never know, but had Hobbs and Nixon done their jobs correctly, that pass could’ve sailed incomplete, and it would’ve been Green Bay’s sideline celebrating a victory.
On a larger scale, Hafley and others could second-guess having a group that doesn’t blitz much, do it more often, and be in that spot on fourth down. The sticking point here is that it wasn’t the blitz call that yielded the touchdown to Chicago. It was a pair of cornerbacks who didn’t lock in on their assignments.
Green Bay has to adjust and be more aggressive, bringing up linebackers Quay Walker and Edgerrin Cooper now that Parsons is done. Heck, Hafley went maniac mode and sent Hobbs on a corner blitz at one point in the game.
It will require the Packers to think outside the box defensively if they want to make a long postseason run. This was a good group last year, with a lot of the same pieces in place now, before Parsons arrived. They did a lot of things right. Pressuring the quarterback, rushing only four, just wasn’t one of them.
If you took a poll among Packers fans, it would come back in heavy favor of wanting to see Hafley and the defense go down swinging. The Joe Barry years of conservativeness and playing cornerbacks a mile off the line of scrimmage left some scars. Nobody wants to see the Packers go down whimpering. Throw some punches and take the risks with Parsons out of the equation. That’s the way to approach it.
In the first game without Parsons, Hafley had just such a game plan. He shouldn’t shy away from it because of one late blunder that wasn’t a product of the blitz. The Packers need Hafley to keep his foot on the gas.