Packers hire Boston College’s Jeff Hafley as defensive coordinator

The Green Bay Packers have hired Boston College head coach Jeff Hafley as their new defensive coordinator, the team announced Wednesday.

“We are excited to welcome Jeff, his wife, Gina, and their daughters, Hope and Leah, to the Packers and the Green Bay community,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said in a statement. “Jeff has had success at every stop of his coaching career with an impressive track record of developing players at every level. We look forward to him leading our defense.”

Hafley went 22-26 in four seasons at Boston College, bringing the Eagles to bowl eligibility in three of his four years. Boston College finished 7-6 this season with a win over No. 22 SMU in the Fenway Bowl.

Hafley had resisted prior NFL coaching opportunities in the past. But his reasons for taking this coordinator job are rooted in both the overall state of college football and the opportunity to work for one of the NFL’s most respected franchises.

“He wants to go coach football again in a league that is all about football,” a source told ESPN. “College coaching has become fundraising, NIL and recruiting your own team and transfers. There’s no time to coach football anymore.

“A lot of things that he went back to college for have disappeared.”

Hafley becomes the third sitting college head coach to leave on his accord this year for a coordinator job. He follows South Alabama’s Kane Wommack and Buffalo’s Maurice Linguist. They both took coordinator jobs at Alabama, and the moves speak to the gap created as the top-tier schools pull away from the others in terms of resources. That’s only been magnified in this era of name, image and likeness deals being critical to recruiting and roster retention.

The future of the Packers proved a significant allure to Hafley, as they have a strong young core and bright future. He’s a longtime friend of LaFleur’s and longtime admirer of the Packers franchise.

He’ll replace Joe Barry and be the third different defensive coordinator as LaFleur enters his sixth year as the franchise’s head coach.

While LaFleur and Hafley have never directly worked together, they have some mutual connections. Hafley was the Browns’ defensive backs coach in 2014-15 under then-head coach Mike Pettine, who was LaFleur’s first defensive coordinator in Green Bay (2019-20). Hafley also worked for 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, one of LaFleur’s mentors. Hafley was the 49ers’ defensive backs coach from 2016 to ’18 before he became Ohio State’s co-defensive coordinator.

The rest of the Packers defensive coaching staff is under contract for the 2024 season and none of them was let go when the Packers parted ways with Barry. So there’s a good chance some — or all — of them could return to work under Hafley.

Hafley is a veteran NFL assistant coach who worked seven years in the NFL coaching various secondary positions before returning to college football as Ohio State’s defensive coordinator in 2019.

The Kansas City Chiefs were crowned the Super Bowl LVIII champions Sunday night, which means it is now officially the 2024 NFL offseason. We’re only a few weeks away from free agency and a couple of months from the draft, and this spring is expected to bring a lot of movement.

Will the Bears return with Justin Fields at quarterback, or will they draft a QB at No. 1 overall in April? Will Baker Mayfield return to the Buccaneers or cash in somewhere else in free agency? Is Derrick Henry’s time in Tennessee over? A lot can happen before the season starts in September.

We asked our NFL experts — Matt Bowen, Mike Clay, Jeremy Fowler, Dan Graziano, Matt Miller, Eric Moody, Jordan Reid, Mike Tannenbaum, Lindsey Thiry, Seth Walder and Field Yates — to make picks for next year’s Super Bowl matchup and 2024 MVP, along with potential breakout teams/players and one offseason move they would like to see.