The Packers, Scheme Fit and Roster Construction
The difficult decisions of being a decision maker
By rcon14 Mar 5, 2025, 2:05pm CST
Most of the time when a general manager is being interviewed at the NFL Combine, they say very little of interest. General managers are, by design, trying to give out the most milquetoast of answers simply to get the media availability over with and get back to their real job. Every now and then, though, you do get a peak behind the curtain to not only what their thought process is, but to what the thought process is of the organization. Thanks to former APC contributor Tyler Brooke, we did get a little peak behind the philosophical curtain. Unfortunately, the audio of the question is extremely difficult to pick up, so it has been edited out, but to paraphrase the question a bit: How much does scheme impact your process in acquiring players?
The snarky “no particular reason” I mention in the tweet is that this morning Wendell Ferreira and Destin Adams of A to Z Sports reported that Green Bay has an interest in Colts defensive end Dayo Odeyingbo, who is set to hit free agency next week. This article isn’t meant to be a large scouting report on Odeyingbo, so I’m not going to spend too much time on him, but a paragraph of context is necessary for the broader point.
Oyedingbo is an oversized defensive end, coming in at 6’6’’ and 286 pounds, per the Colts' website. This size and strength make him a solid edge-setter in the run game, but he has not provided significant pass-rush production. His 12% pressure rate in 2024 falls well behind legitimate pass-rushing threats in this free agent class like Chase Young and Khalil Mack. Our own Justis Mosqueda looked at pressures over expected, and Odeyingbo measured in at slightly below average for the past two seasons at -3.5. Long story short, for a team that needs immediate impact pass rush production across from Rashan Gary, Odeyingbo has not shown he can provide that.
With that out of the way, this is not the first time Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst has talked about scheme having a more limited impact on their player acquisition strategy. In fact, it was specific to the defensive end position. He said after Jeff Hafley was hired to be the defensive coordinator that once you start targeting smaller players up front you can get small in a real hurry. Now whether Gutekunst is just talking to fill space in an answer or genuinely means these things is tough to know, and only the actions he takes over the next two months will provide us any real insight. But it does get at a fundamental tension that exists in team construction: You want to make sure you are giving your coaches the tools they need to properly implement the type of football they want to play while also insulating yourself as an organization if that does not work and you need to pivot to something else.
This is an understandable tension for Gutekunst to be keenly aware of. The Packers have had nearly unprecedented levels of front-office stability over the past thirty-plus years. Only a brief period with head coach/GM Mike Sherman from 2001-2004 interrupts what is basically a thirty-year Ron Wolf dynasty with Ted Thompson taking over in 2005 (Thompson worked directly under Wolf from 1993-1999) and then Brian Gutekunst taking over from Thompson (Gutekunst worked as a scout for Wolf from 99-00 and under Thompson from 2005 until being hired as the general manager in 2018) in 2017. With that level of stability at the top, the Packers have had the privilege of rarely needing to scramble because of job insecurity. However, there is a downside to overstating how future-focused and coach-insulated you need to be as a GM.
NFL timelines are very short. Players careers just are not that long, and because of how much churn occurs and because of how little money is guaranteed to players at any given time (outside of superstars), you can flip a roster around entirely within just a couple of seasons. The Packers are a perfect example of this, resembling almost none of their 2021 self this past season, or even by 2023.
With that editorial note established, it is then important to note just how divorced the Packers defensive end room is compared to the rest of the coaching tree that Jeff Hafley comes from. Five teams had either defensive coordinators or head coaches that came from that same tree: Houston, Indianapolis, San Francisco, the New York Jets, and Green Bay. Here are the weights of the players who earned at least 250 EDGE alignment snaps per NFL Next Gen Stats:
HOU: Danielle Hunter 263, Will Anderson 243, Derek Barnett 258
IND: Kwity Paye 265, Laiatu Latu 265, Dayo Odeyingbo 286, Tyquan Lewis 260
SF: Nick Bosa 266, Leonard Floyd 240, Sam Okuayinonu 269, Yetur Gross-Matos 265
NYJ: Will McDonald 236, Michael Clemons 262, Haason Reddick 240*
*Reddick included because his snap count would have been higher if not for his contract situation
Meanwhile, Green Bay’s defensive end room looked like such:
Rashan Gary 278, Kingsley Enagbare 258, Lukas Van Ness 275, Preston Smith 272
Brenton Cox had 148 snaps and weighs 249 pounds. The two lighter defensive ends in the room were a fifth-round pick and an undrafted free agent, respectively. This heavier version of edge player made more sense in Joe Barry’s quarters-heavier split-safety system where defensive ends are asked to hold up longer at the point of attack in run defense, so as to allow the safeties adequate time to be alley players in the run game. Green Bay was effectively playing a gap light in the box on most snaps, thus necessitating the front six players to slow-play things, allowing the fill defenders time. But on early downs, Jeff Hafley is going to show more single-high looks, adding an extra body to cover every gap with a player.
This does not necessitate the same body types on the edge, and faster or twitchier players can be targeted. That is not to say that size in and of itself is some sort of problem. Myles Garrett, despite being 271 pounds, would not be a bad addition, nor would Reggie White at 290 pounds be out of place in this defense, but it’s just that there are not many Myles Garretts or Reggie Whites to go around. And what Green Bay sorely needs more than stout run defense from their defensive end room is the ability to get quick and consistent pressure, something the room struggled mightily with all season. In his answer, Gutekunst talked about how what Hafley was doing changed over the course of the year as he figured out what was and wasn’t going to work. The reason things had to be changed so much is that the front four wasn’t good enough to get home, which just isn’t an acceptable outcome regardless of scheme, but in particular in the tree that Hafley comes from.
In response to that, Hafley had to dial up a lot more simulated pressures, and in particular, had to bring pressures from the linebacker level, which vacates a body in the middle of the field, where we saw Green Bay get routinely torched down the home stretch of the season. The central tension in the defense, from Gus Bradley through Robert Saleh, is that our pass rush is going to be able to get home before you’re able to throw the in-breakers, deep crossers, or flood the deep zones. If Green Bay cannot get quick pressure, that structure of defense is not going to work.
Gutekunst may ideologically want larger defensive ends, especially after watching the Packers run defense struggle for what felt like a decade, but if you hire Jeff Hafley, you need to let Jeff Hafley run the defense you hired him to run. It doesn’t make sense to hire Jeff Hafley and then he has to pivot and run a defense you didn’t hire him to run because you didn’t get him the correct personnel to run the defense you hired him to run. If it doesn’t work and blows up, you can make the roster adjustments, likely within a single off-season, and move forward.