Paul Bretl | 5/12/2025
GREEN BAY, Wis. — We often hear about Year 2 leaps for NFL players in their sophomore seasons. Well, the same can be true to an extent for entire units that are entering their second seasons within a specific scheme.
As we look at this Packers defense and wonder or evaluate how this unit continues to build upon what they established in 2024, the usual mixture of improved consistency, internal growth from those already on the roster, and perhaps some outside additions are always going to be important elements.
However, in 2025, now also a big part of that equation for Green Bay will be the continuity of being in Jeff Hafley’s defensive scheme for a full offseason.
“My relationship with the players in Year 2, I feel like there’s kind of a trust built so the relationship I think can get even better,” said Jeff Hafley on Monday when meeting with reporters. “But to me, it’s how fast can we get to where we finished the season and then build from there and evolve and be more consistent?”
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As Hafley described when meeting with reporters on Monday, this offseason, compared to last, when he was just arriving in Green Bay, is “way different.” A year ago, Hafley and his position coaches were establishing what they wanted to do schematically. They and the team were going through installs for the very first time, and when going through film to show the players examples of how Hafley wanted things done, he had to show clips from previous stops he had been at.
But now, that is far from the case. This offseason, while Hafley self-scouts regularly in-season, the offseason provides a much greater opportunity to make a much deeper dive. The teaching points that the coaching staff and players are able to have are hyper-detailed, with Hafley and Co. able to pull up film from the last year of the players operating within this specific scheme.
“It’s a lot easier to do when you have all this time and you can really pick it apart and you can really talk about it and you can really group it all together and see what worked and what didn’t and who did what well, so that part has been really, really nice,” Hafley said.
“And what’s really nice now is when we’re with the players, we’re watching our tape. We have all this time to sit there and watch what we did and show ’em what we did well and show ’em how we need to get better in certain areas. It’s like you and I sitting down and here was your 1-on-1 tape with your position coach. Coach, what do I need to improve? Well, I don’t have to tell you. I can show you now. Like that’s a huge difference.”
Across the board in Hafley’s first season as defensive coordinator, the Packers saw improved results. This unit finished the 2024 season ranked sixth in points per game, 12th in passing yards per game, and they were top-10 in takeaways. Green Bay’s biggest improvement, however, may have come against the run, with the Packers ranking seventh in rush yards per game, which included allowing fewer than 100 rushing yards per game for the first time in a season since 2009.
As the season went on, the Packers’ defense continued to improve. That plus the effort that he saw his defense playing with on a regular basis is what has Hafley the most proud of Green Bay’s performance on that side of the ball in Year 1.
“First I would say, I’m proud of the way the guys played in year 1,” Hafley said. “The thing that I’m most proud of, I do believe we got better, and I think we played our best football late in the season, and that was the most important thing to me. Year 1, you’re figuring out the system, you’re figuring out the players and can we get better each week?
“But probably the biggest thing is, I thought we were playing really hard at the end of the year. Like we were really physically, we were really running to the ball, guys were playing confident, guys were communicating and I just felt like we came alive and that’s probably the thing – throw out the numbers, the statistics and where we were – I think we played harder than our opponents at the end of the year and we were more physical.”
What’s next for Hafley and this Packers defense will be building upon that performance and not plateauing, or worse, going backwards. Everything already mentioned will be key components when it comes to taking another step or two forward in 2025, but also a critical factor will be Hafley’s ability to continually adapt and evolve the playbook–a quality he possesses and showcased throughout his first season.
“In a perfect world you want to get back to where you left off as fast as possible and build from there,” said Hafley, “so how fast can we do that? We have guys who have played in the system, we have some new pieces we need to add, we need to evolve, we can’t just do the same thing and say here’s the playbook and this is what we’re running. No. We’re a different team. It’s a different year. Offenses are going to evolved, we have to evolved.
“I would say I would like us to be more consistent, OK. There’s a lot of things we did do well, but I think the consistency needs to improve. Certainly, I need to improve. Looking at myself personally, how I called games, what I called when I called it, how I got to certain things, can I get there faster.”
Like any unit, the Packers have their areas where they have to improve, along with some question marks on the roster. As has been talked about all offseason, Green Bay needs more from its pass rush in 2025. And with Jaire Alexander’s future up in the air, there is uncertainty at the cornerback position.
Ultimatley, we likely won’t know how much or if the pass rush improved or what the state of the Packers’ cornerback position will be until the players take the field and games are played. But with that said, for a group that statistically was one of the better defenses in the NFL and playing its best ball late in the year, that continuity component that this Packers’ defense has in 2025 gives them a big leg up on where they were this time a year ago.
Now it’s about making sure everyone maximizes that element this offseason and into the new year.
“I think the whole key, though, is you gotta get the guys in Year 2 to go in with the same beginning mindset that even though I might’ve heard this all year, I’m gonna listen like I never heard it before and maybe pick up on some things that I didn’t really know or understand,” Hafley added. “That’s the key right now. We gotta push the guys to have that mindset like, pretend you’re hearing this for the first time again and continue to hit the little details.”