• Miami Dolphins get their guy: In a league where it can be difficult for coordinators to find their footing straight away, Jeff Hafley took a Packers defense that ranked 22nd in yards per game allowed prior to his arrival and turned them into a top-five unit in almost any meaningful metric. 
• Minkah Fitzpatrick should thrive under Jeff Hafley: He is exactly the kind of versatile chess piece Hafley adores. Expect to see him carrying out all kinds of roles for the Dolphins next season. 
• 2026 NFL Draft season is here: Try the best-in-class PFF Mock Draft Simulator and learn about 2026’s top prospects while trading and drafting for your favorite NFL team.

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After firing head coach Mike McDaniel following a second consecutive losing season, the Miami Dolphins have once again pivoted to a defensive-minded head coach just as they did in 2019 when they hired Brian Flores. 

Jeff Hafley was a sought-after name in the current coaching cycle following two impressive seasons as the Green Bay Packers‘ defensive coordinator. While his defense may not have finished this season as strongly as they started, there were simply too many openings around the league for Hafley to be left unwanted. 

Hiring defensive-minded head coaches these days is undoubtedly a risky business decision. It will require the Dolphins to nail their offensive coaching hires in order to keep pace with the two MVP-caliber quarterbacks within their division. 

The issue with doing this is that patience in the NFL is at an all-time low, and any kind of promising offensive play-caller gets snapped up almost immediately. This coaching cycle alone will see a record 10 NFL head coaches getting replaced. If you find a good offensive coordinator, you can rest assured they won’t be around for long.

However, the Dolphins should still feel really good about bringing Jeff Hafley into the building. In a league where it can be difficult for coordinators to find their footing straight away, Hafley took a Packers defense that ranked 22nd in yards per game allowed prior to his arrival and turned them into a top-five unit in almost any meaningful metric. 

Hafley achieved this without overhauling the roster — his only major acquisition before calling a play was free agent safety Xavier McKinney — so the Dolphins brass will be hopeful that he can once again do more with less in Miami, as their offense requires enough offseason attention as is. 

What’s most impressive about Hafley’s tenure with the Packers was how advanced his scheme appeared right away. While many coordinators tend to strip away all complexity and focus on the fundamentals before layering in changes in Year 2 and beyond, Hafley was keen to implement some of his most advanced looks from Day 1. 

In his first year as an NFL defensive coordinator, Hafley increased the Packers’ total number of safety disguises, increased simulated pressure by more than tenfold over previous seasons,and almost tripled Green Bay’s usage of Cover-0 blitzes. 

Hafley’s immediate adjustments 

Every defensive play-caller stresses their desire to play aggressive football, but Hafley’s schemes truly embody what it means to take risks in search of major rewards. 

Despite his all-or-nothing approach, Hafley still managed to dissuade opponents from trying to land knockout blows on his defense. His Packers faced the third-lowest percentage of deep (20-plus yardw) pass attempts downfield over his two seasons. 

All-Pro caliber safety Xavier McKinney definitely did some of the heavy lifting here, but Hafley’s defenses generally do a great job at keeping everything in front of them without totally sacrificing easy completions in shallow areas. 

Hafley’s most unique identifier is how and when he employs blitzes. During his two seasons in Green Bay, the Packers have blitzed the third fewest of any team on early-down passes, and the third most on late downs. 

Packers pass blitz rate under Jeff Hafley

Hafley’s defenses are taught to sense blood in the water when offenses are feeling the pinch. It’s why Micah Parsons looked like such a difference-maker for this unit in 2025, and why his impact was so sorely missed once he got injured. 

There will be no Micah Parsons for Jeff Hafley in Miami. The Dolphins didn’t have a defensive lineman with a PFF grade north of 70.0 this season. Free agent options at the position aren’t overly enticing and drafting at 11th overall likely keeps the Dolphins out of the Rueben Bain Jr. sweepstakes, barring a trade up. 

Hafley will, however, have free safety Minkah Fitzpatrick and linebacker Jordyn Brooks at his disposal. Fitzpatrick, in particular, is exactly the kind of versatile chess piece Hafley adores. Expect to see him carrying out all kinds of roles for the Dolphins next season. 

As an elite run defender, Brooks will remain the top dog at linebacker for Hafley; however, he may look to upgrade his running mate. Quay Walker, who posted over 1,750 snaps wearing the green dot under Hafley, makes a lot of sense if the Packers decide to move on.

Perhaps most importantly from a fundamental coaching perspective, the Dolphins will be optimistic that Jeff Hafley can vastly improve Miami’s tackling quality, given that he already achieved this in Green Bay. 

Over the past two regular seasons, the Dolphins have missed the second-most tackles of any defense (only the Arizona Cardinals have missed more); meanwhile, Hafley’s Packers missed the fourth fewest. 

Improving a team’s ability to bring ball carriers to the ground is as much about culture as it is about technique. Fortunately, Jeff Hafley is about as good a culture hire as you’re going to find in any coach younger than 50 years old. 

Beyond just his defensive prowess, Hafley brings the natural presence of a head coach. Anyone who has listened to his interviews over the past two seasons in Green Bay could easily see why front offices were enamored with the idea of bringing him in as their head coach. 

He has several years of head coaching experience at the collegiate level with Boston College, where the role is arguably even more all-encompassing than it is in the NFL. College head coaches are not only tasked with player development but until recently, they’ve typically taken on the brunt of player acquisition, too. 

Hafley won’t have to invest quite as much time in finding the right players for his team. Instead, that duty will go to new Dolphins general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan. Another former Packers employee who spent the past 24 years in Green Bay, Sullivan was one of the most sought-after general managers on the market. 

His first order of business in Miami will be figuring out the quarterback position. One name currently earning plenty of traction is Malik Willis — yet another member of the Green Bay Packers searching for a promotion. 

Willis has looked excellent in a limited sample size over the last two seasons in Green Bay and has rightfully earned a second opportunity as a starting NFL quarterback.

Willis had the highest overall PFF grade of any quarterback in the league this season (92.3), albeit only on 97 offensive snaps. 

Willis finished the season with the highest adjusted completion percentage of any quarterback to throw more than five passes (94.1%) while also leading the league in passer rating (145.5) and not registering a single turnover-worthy play on his 47 dropbacks. 

The main concern surrounding Willis remains his brutally long time-to-throw, which was over 3.5 seconds during his stint with the Tennessee Titans, and his process hasn’t shown any major signs of speeding up (3.32 seconds this past season). 

The Dolphins constructed an offense around Tua Tagovailoa that has been built on getting the ball out rapidly. Pivoting to Willis could require major transitions elsewhere. 

It is a new era of Miami Dolphins football, and the task of keeping pace in the AFC East is tougher than ever before. A division that has forever been dominated by one of two teams now sees both the New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills near the peak of their respective powers at the same time. 

Jeff Hafley definitely has the tools to turn the AFC East into a three-way arms race and even establish the Dolphins as the premier defense of the quartet. 

Miami’s success will still hinge on getting the quarterback position correct, but if they do find the correct signal caller, they could quickly become one of the most complete squads in the AFC.