Breaking down the offensive and defensive schemes of the Green Bay Packers, who the Detroit Lions will square off against in Week 9.
The Detroit Lions (6-1) will take on the Green Bay Packers (6-2) in Week 9 of the 2024 regular season. The Packers retained their head coach and offensive coordinator but made a change at defensive coordinator, hiring Jeff Hafley to replace Joe Barry and switching to a 43 scheme.
Let’s take a look at the Packers’ coaching staff and the changes to their offensive and defensive schemes.
Packers head coach: Matt LaFleur
Born in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, Matt LaFleur began coaching in 2003 and quickly landed a job at Central Michigan in 2004, working alongside Robert Saleh (former Jets head coach) and under head coach Brian Kelly (now at LSU). By 2008, LaFleur’s hard work got him recognized by the NFL and he joined the Texans for two seasons before making the jump to join Mike Shanahan’s offense in Washington—a move that would heavily influence his entire career.
Under Mike Shanahan, LaFleur would establish relationships with Kyle Shanahan (49ers head coach) Sean McVay (Rams head coach), and Mike McDaniel (Dolphins head coach). LaFleur left the NFL for one year (2014) to help coach Kelly establish his program at Notre Dame, before joining Kyle Shanahan in Atlanta for their Super Bowl run. When Shanahan left for the 49ers, LaFleur joined his buddy McVay in Los Angeles as the Rams offensive coordinator. After a brief stop in Tennessee, these connections and football experience eventually landed LaFleur a head coaching job with the Packers in 2019.
Offensive coordinator: Adam Stenavich
Stenavich was a starting offensive lineman for the Michigan Wolverines in the early 2000s, and played in the NFL for a few seasons, before heading back to Ann Arbor in 2011, this time as a coach. In 2017, Stenavich landed an assistant offensive line coach job in San Francisco, working for Kyle Shanahan, and when LaFleur landed his head coaching job in Green Bay, he hired Stenavich to be his offensive line coach. Three years later Stenavich was promoted to offensive coordinator.
LaFleur’s West Coast offensive scheme
LaFleur is the Packers’ offensive play-caller and runs a variation of the West Coast that he learned from McVay and Shanahan but has installed some of his own flare to adapt to his personnel. With the departure of Aaron Rodgers, Lafleur has more control over the offense and you can see his personal touches in their offensive execution.
In the passing game, the Packers lean on vertically attacking philosophies, mixed with typical West Coast influences, such as play-action, pre-snap motion, bunch formations, screens, and chip blocks to slow down the opposing pass rush. Their rushing scheme is mostly outside zone, but LaFleur incorporated more gap concepts late last season to add more wrinkles into the mix. This should be a very familiar offense for the Lions, as they’ve seen it several times this season already, and they run a variation of the West Coast scheme themselves.
Quarterback Jordan Love is an ideal fit for LaFleur’s scheme and the coach continues to adapt it to fit his players. With Love as the signal caller, LaFleur will force defenses to pinch up with frequent success in the short area, then push the ball down the field hoping for explosive plays. Love has a bevy of offensive weapons and he spreads the ball around a lot, utilizing all his available options.
Love has been, and currently is, hurt this season and LaFleur has needed to turn to backup quarterback Malik Willis. When Willis is in the game, LaFleur adapts his offense to Willis’ strengths, leaning more on RPO and designed quarterback rollouts and runs.
This ability to adjust is a big reason LaFleur’s offense is averaging 27 points scored a game (sixth highest in NFL) and are currently 6-2 on the season.
Defensive coordinator: Jeff Hafley
Jeff Hafley began coaching in 2002, mostly in the college ranks, with his most important role coming at Rutgers in 2011 working under Greg Schiano. In 2012, Schiano was hired by the Bucs and he brought Hafley with him to coach his defensive backs. After Schiano was let go, Hafley joined the Browns (2014) and 49ers (2016) where he worked under Kyle Shanahan and defensive coordinator Robert Saleh. Like with LaFleur and Stenavich, his time with the Shanahan family would influence the rest of his career.
In 2019, Schiano left a defensive coordinator position at Ohio State and recommended Hafley as his replacement. After just one season in Columbus, he was offered a head coaching position at Boston College, but after four seasons, he opted to return to the NFL as the Packers defensive coordinator.
Hafley’s 43 base defensive scheme
Hafley runs a different scheme than the one he installed at Boston College, but you can see similarities. Shanahan/Saleh’s defensive scheme shows up a lot in Hafley’s defensive concepts and philosophies.
At his core, Hafley wants his defense to play fast and attack. They deploy a traditional 1-gapping 43 defensive front, but spend about 75% of their time in subpackages, often removing a linebacker in favor of a defensive back. In coverage, they typically operate out of Cover-1 or Cover-3, with press man concepts from their cornerbacks. They will use both corners and safeties in the slot (depending on the opponent) and will often rely on their coverage holding up long enough so their pass rush can get home. They lean heavily on a single-high safety look, where Xavier McKinney has been off-the-charts successful, including leading the NFL in interceptions with six.
“They’re really good, they’re disruptive,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said of the Packers’ defense. “They’ve changed their style from what they were last year and it’s more attack style. These guys are up the field and they cause a lot of disruption. […] Then when you have a guy like McKinney who’s instinctive, really good ball skills, can see it, feel it, he’s got six picks right now. So, you get in the quarterback’s face and cause him to make a throw he shouldn’t and it’s just a little bit off, that guy’s going to make you pay.”
They don’t blitz much, roughly 17.5% of the time—as is typical with this style of scheme—but Hafley has slowly been dialing up the frequency on third downs. Of late, Hafley has been blitzing over 50% of the time on third downs, often using “replacement” blitzes to confuse the offense. “Replacement” blitzing is the ideology of overloading the line of scrimmage with six or seven defenders so that the offense doesn’t know who is coming. Then, at the snap, they will overload one side of the offensive line with the blitz, often dropping the other side into coverage—the Lions have seen something similar with the Vikings defense.
The frequency of blitzing could very well be specific to their opponent, but it’s been increasing over the last few weeks and could point to a philosophical change.
So far, the Packers defense has been significantly better than it was last season. They rank No. 12 in DVOA defense, No. 12 defending the run, and No. 10 against the pass. They lead the NFL with 19 turnovers, a likely result of the pressure they create by rotating defensive linemen, resulting in poor decisions from offenses.
While there are clear improvements, there are vulnerabilities to this style of defense that play into the Lions’ wheelhouse. If the Lions can catch them in Cover-1, the deep ball is certainly in play. Cover-3 means the Lions should be able to establish the run, while also attacking the intermediate level with crossers and over routes. Attacking the seam will also be an option, especially if they continue to use safeties to cover slot receivers—a matchup typically suited to favor Amon-Ra St. Brown.
Overall, Hafley’s defense has a lot of talent and they’re adapting to the new scheme well, As they gain experience, he is unveiling more elements of his defense and getting more aggressive. While the defense is improving, they will face their toughest test to date with Detroit’s top-ranked offense coming to town.
