Packers Hire New DC

For KegMan and RB...... tackling and our new DC, the Packers must have heard you

When Dave Wannstedt was coach at Pitt, he got used to seeing a lot of unfamiliar faces around the Panthers’ football offices. In the offseason, he always was open to allowing high school and college coaches to visit his staff.

Wannstedt had gotten so used to seeing one of those visiting coaches that one day, he turned to defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads and asked: “Did we hire Jeff Hafley? Because every time I turn around, I’m bumping into him in the hallways or in the meetings.”

They hadn’t. Well, at least not yet. Hafley was in his mid-20s and the secondary coach at FCS member Albany. Everyone around the Panthers’ program liked him, so when Wannstedt had a GA opening in 2006, Hafley seemed an obvious choice. Wannstedt knew he was smart, hardworking and personable, making him an ideal fit for the staff. Hafley, a former Siena College wide receiver, became the Panthers’ secondary coach in 2008 and might’ve been their best recruiter, too, because of the work he did in his home state of New Jersey.

“He brought us (four-star recruits) Bryan Murphy, T.J. Clemmings and Ray Graham, K’Waun Williams, who is still playing in the NFL, and Dion Lewis,” Wannstedt said. “Jersey was always a big spot for Penn State, and Greg (Schiano, then the Rutgers coach) had been getting most of the players, but thanks to Jeff, we were getting as good of players out of there as anyone.”

Wannstedt, now a Big Ten Network/Fox Sports analyst, isn’t at all surprised at how quickly his protégé has made a big impact at his new place, Ohio State, where Hafley, 40, is the co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach. Turns out no one who has coached with Hafley is surprised.

The Buckeyes are No. 2 in the nation in fewest yards per play allowed (3.54); they finished 72nd last season (5.77). More impressive, only three teams are allowing fewer plays of at least 30 yards per game than the Buckeyes, who host Michigan State on Saturday night. They have surrendered four in five games; in 2018, they allowed 39, which ranked No. 118.

One big reason is Ohio State is doing something most other teams are having a harder and harder time with: tackling. Coaches all over the country have lamented their inability to tackle as well as they used to because health and safety concerns have forced practice and drill schedules to change. The Buckeyes, though, are tackling better than they have in years. Hafley’s standard has not changed. On the team goals board, they work to have fewer than six or seven missed tackles a game. He told The Athletic the only time this season they missed that was in a 76-5 blowout of Miami (Ohio).
“I think our scheme allows guys to line up and read their keys, and we talk a lot about leveraging the ball,” Hafley said. “So we put them in positions where they’re getting pretty good angles to the ball, and we’re in a scheme where we can get multiple people to the ball.”

The staff harps on leveraging the football. Translation: That means having a guy outside-in and a guy inside-out and two people to the ball, Hafley said.

But the secret to sound tackling doesn’t really seem like it’s such a secret: The Buckeyes practiced tackling in camp.

“The way we actually tackled to the ground in seven-on-seven,” he said. “The way we did today, on Tuesday (in early October), we did live tackling drills versus scout team running backs. Ryan (Day) asks me every Tuesday in a staff meeting, ‘You want to live tackle again today?’ And I look right at him and I say yes. And we do it.”

The Buckeyes do a four- or five-minute practice period to sharpen their tackling skills. For defensive backs, that means standing about 10 yards away from a ball carrier for a full-speed, live tackling rep. For linebackers, it’s the same thing, only they line up about 5 or 6 yards away. “And it’s full speed, where the ball carrier can cut back, he can take it up, and we’re tackling to the ground,” Hafley said.

The Buckeyes also did it in seven-on-seven, when they’d try to get tackling work in the last five plays or so and scripted it in a safe fashion.

“If I wanted Damon Arnette to get a tackle at corner, I’d have them play off, without anybody really knowing, and Ryan would throw a hitch out there and we’d have to tackle,” Hafley said. “Or we’d run a swing pass and set it up where (linebacker) Malik (Harrison) would have to run inside-out and tackle him.”

Hafley came to Ohio State after seven seasons coaching defensive backs in the NFL. That experience shaped his belief that tackling skills are like a muscle that can get soft and needs work to remain toned.

“What I learned in the NFL was in the first preseason game, you’re terrible at tackling,” he said. “The second game, you’re a little bit better, and by the third, you’re almost ready to play it. You’re figuring all those preseason games, everybody probably gets three or four tackles in those preseason games, three or four live tackles, because the starters don’t play a whole bunch.

“So our goal, where in college football you don’t have any preseason games, is to have each starter get a handful of live tackles to kind of simulate a scrimmage or a preseason game. That way, the first time we weren’t really tackling somebody was the first game of the season, and we felt the safe way to do it was in seven-on-seven, where we could control it.”

An aspect that Ohio State has really improved upon is the speed and attention to detail it’s now playing with on defense. Hafley is proud of the way his defense is running to the ball and also how they are doing it.

“We don’t just talk about running to the ball,” he said. “To me, the most important thing about tackling is the approach. I got up in front of the whole team, and Ryan had me talking about tackling in front of the whole team.

“I think people spend way too much time just talking about the finish and driving your legs and wrapping up. But people put themselves in such bad positions, where they’re not even close to being in a position to make the play. Everything we do, we just talked about tracking and the angle and the approach and getting yourself in the best position to actually get yourself having a fighting chance to make the tackle. Whether we’re doing a live period or not, we talk about that on every single play.”
Hafley received a crash course in that over the past few seasons from 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh, who had learned under Pete Carroll in Seattle.

“Everything, every drill, every rep, was about tracking, which is the approach to the ball carrier,” Hafley said. “Over the last two years, it was beat into my head, and then we finally got to kind of do it. I heard myself sounding like him over and over again.”

Hafley said he learned a lot about the nuances of tackling from Schiano, the guy he followed in Columbus and his old boss at Rutgers and with the Tampa Bay Bucs. Schiano taught him that when you wrap and roll, sweep the ankle, and that you should try to put a shoulder pad through the ball carrier’s sternum.

“But the whole approach thing really opened my eyes because the more you watch tape, guys run and take bad angles. … They run by the ball carrier or they get the ball cut back underneath,” he said. “I think we stress more of the approach than sometimes the actual tackle, and I think it’s helping. I’m just telling you, we get multiple people to the ball. When our middle safety has to come down and make a tackle, he knows he’s going to have a guy to his left and a guy on his right, so he can just try to go shoot his gun and not worry about it being the only one there.”

Hafley also isn’t looking to get too cute with a bunch of disguises in hopes of rattling the opposing quarterback.

“We don’t have a guy starting on the left, sprinting to the right on a snap of the ball,” he said. “We want all of our cleats in the ground, and we want all of our eyes in the right place, so all 11 of us are taking really good angles. We don’t have to run that 10 yards, backpedal, then react. We’re all going downhill to the football and running.”

The result has been eye-popping defensive improvement. In five games, the Buckeyes defense has allowed just one first-half touchdown. It’s likely no one is surprised by how well the line is playing, especially when Chase Young is the headliner. The same goes for the back end, where corner Jeff Okudah is a guy some draft analysts are viewing as a top-10 pick. But Hafley is especially proud of the growth of his linebacker group. All are playing the best ball of their college careers. Harrison, a senior, had almost as many tackles for loss in the first month of the season (8) as he did all of last season (8 1/2).

“(New linebacker coach) Al Washington’s done a really good job of pushing him and staying on him,” Hafley said. “I think he challenged him, and Malik knows that this is it for him. He’s got to put that on tape, and he’s bought in. I think it’s also the culture here. I think if you’re not running and hitting, you’re gonna stick out, and I don’t think anybody wants that. Look at how our corners are tackling right now. They’re, like, selling out and giving everything they have to hit anything that moves.

“So, it’s more of the culture right now is running and hitting, and if you’re not going to be part of it, don’t go out on the field. They’re a confident group, and I think they’re enjoying it.”

The connection between the new defensive coach and the players sure seems to be working.

“I kinda got a good idea for coach Haf the first time I talked to him because he is smooth,” defensive tackle Robert Landers said. “That’s a smooth guy. He moves smooth. He talks smooth. I’m like, ‘All right, I’m gonna like him.’”

Hafley’s former colleagues say he has a gift for his ability to command the room and reach players, whether they are NFL stars with 10-figure contracts or college players a decade younger.

“He’s just really, really sharp and detailed and has a way with people,” 49ers defensive line coach Chris Kiffin said. “He’s really a people person. He could control a room full of NFL players. The guys liked him. They knew he knew his stuff. He’s just smart, man.”

UCLA coach Chip Kelly said he figured Hafley was “the real deal” right before he hired him on his staff in San Francisco because he coached the secondary for Schiano, himself a former DB coach. “He really reminds me a lot of Ryan (Day),” says Kelly, who coached Day at New Hampshire and worked with him at several coaching stops. “He’s a hell of a teacher.”

Hafley has returned to the college game and shown there might be too much hype about scheme and not enough about execution and fundamentals.

“There’s a lot to be said about lining up and playing ball and stressing fundamentals and techniques, more so than anything else,” he said. “I think that’s what we do as coaches here. I really do believe that you do have time to teach fundamentals and technique, so whoever says that you can’t, I don’t believe that.

“You do have time. It’s just, do you want to prioritize spending all your time on scheme or do you want to give yourself a lot of priority on fundamentals and technique? Because ultimately, this game is going to be won on fundamentals and techniques. That’s more important than any scheme you could ever draw up.”
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Mark87 said:
FYI~ AT Ohio state and in the NFL very much a off man...cover 3/4 guy single high safety. At BC he used a ton of press man and cover 2.

He REALLY likes to mix up his blitz packages a lot.

Weakness>>> Run defense is just okay

Strength... He adapts his defense to his personal. Solid X and O coach
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Seems that is GB MO run D's that at best is just ok.
 
oakleaf said:
Hafley and LaFleur are longtime friends, per Pete Thamel of ESPN.
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So ML hiring a buddy? Hope he did not decide to hire a friend he knows instead of going with a guy he did not know who might be better.
 
So is his scheme more Pettine or Saleh or a mix of them?
 
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