NFL Offseason/Free Agency Thread

[texaspackerbacker]

It's not just loyalty. What I saw from our Safetys this past season was better than I've seen in a lot of past years. You shouldn't get rid of somebody unless you can replace them with as good or better. Safety, as I said, i one of those positions where college success doesn't always translate to NFL success. The other thing is that unlike Corner where a lot of athleticism is required, Safety is more about being instinctive. You can always point to failures. Generally, though, there weren't that many with the guys some of ya'all want to get rid of. The other other thing is that scheme and coaching has more to do with success in the secondary than anything else. Our new DC has a background as a DB position coach. We really ought to get some better performance all the way around with his people.

As I also said, we won a helluva lot of games even with Barry dragging things down. It's not gonna take too much improvement to win even more.

[Frozen Tundra]

The other other thing is that scheme and coaching has more to do with success in the secondary than anything else. Our new DC has a background as a DB position coach. We really ought to get some better performance all the way around with his people.

I think you and I are in the minority, but I completely agree with you here. I'm not sure why so many people don't seem to think this is going to be a factor.

I'm getting more and more excited about Hafley, because I've been reading a lot about his background and basic defensive philosophy the last few weeks, and one thing that just jumps up off of every page is that his ideas about what's supposed to be happening in the defensive backfield could not possibly be more opposite than what we've seen the Packers doing over the past several years. This guy is all about extreme agression and every defensive player taking the fight to the offense on every play from the instant the ball is snapped, and especially the safeties and CBs. And he expects linebackers to fight the receivers, too.

Our defensive backs in 2024 aren't going to be hanging 8-12 yards off the LOS waiting for the receivers to just set up and do whatever they feel like doing. They're going to be on the line, interfering with the route right from the first step and punching the WR on his first stride, jamming him and steering him away from his route and messing up the timing and limiting the options on his route tree. Break up the route within the first 2 or 3 strides; not just wait for the guy to catch the ball and then try to limit the YAC - spoil the designed play and force the quarterback to throw balls he doesn't want to throw, and then contesting every catch. None of what he expects his DBs to do looks anything like what we've had to watch the last few years.

Every one of the DBs on our roster will be expcted to do things we haven't really seen them do before, so we really don't have a very good idea how well they're going to play in their new roles. So we don't have a clear idea of what they'll be capable of in 2024. I really believe that we're going to learn that some of our DBs are a lot more capable than we thought they were.