The stars are aligning to solve Green Bay’s largest looming issue. The defensive coordinator.
Joe Barry has been an absolute disaster. Sure the statistics haven’t been too terrible, but when you put them in context, it’s nothing short of awful. This is a unit with countless top picks on it. This is a unit that needed to lead the team this year while the offense figured things out. Had they done that the Packers would be in pretty damn good shape. Had the defense been who they were supposed to be and and allowed Christian Watson and this offense to come together, the Green and Gold would be prime for a playoff run.
Instead Barry’s insistence on misusing players and his refusal to be aggressive has cost this team multiple games.
Luckily for Green Bay, the man they wanted before Joe Barry is now officially available.
That’s right, hometown hero Jim Leonhard is officially on the market. After being passed over for the head coach position at Wisconsin it looked for a moment like he would stay on Luke Fickell’s staff.
But ultimately and luckily for Packers fans Leohnard announced on Twitter that he is leaving the program at the end of this season. Given he was priority number one before the hiring of Barry, Leonhard is easily the frontrunner to replace him.(given Barry’s nearly inevitable release) Even Matt LaFleur’s stubborn loyalty shouldn’t prevent the Packers from making a home run hire. Leonhard is a fantastic football coach who grew up and played both high school and college ball in Wisconsin before playing 10 years in the NFL.
As hard as this season has been, if you get Leonhard in the building, have him fix the defensive issues, and then the young receivers and offense continue to develop this team will be right back at the top of the contender pile next year.
The only question is will Green Bay have any competition for Leohnard’s services? They would be silly if they didn’t make him an offer that he couldn’t refuse. We will likely have to wait until the end of the year as Matt LaFleur has made it very clear there would be no announcement on Barry’s future until after the season.
