“Some in the organization wanted to see the defense simplify things and have the ability to play more aggressively.” That could be anyone talking about Joe Barry’s tenure with the Green Bay Packers over the last two years, right? Well, it came from a piece about Barry, but not about the Packers. That is what ESPN’s John Keim wrote when the Washington Commanders fired Barry in January 2017 after two disappointing seasons.
When an NFL team hires a coordinator, they expect the coach to maximize each player’s talents and put together a collective structure that allows the unit to play better than the sum of its parts. Considering what Barry has shown as a defensive coordinator in three separate stints, it’s hard to be confident he will ever be able to do that for the Packers.
Former Packers defensive coordinator Mike Pettine was rightfully criticized for poor playoff performances, and it’s impossible to erase the memory of the NFC Championship game against the San Francisco 49ers from Packers fans’ minds. But it’s hard to argue at this point that the Packers severely downgraded going from Pettine to Barry in 2021. Matt LaFleur made the change because he wanted more input on the defensive scheme and to run some version of the Vic Fangio/Brandon Staley system. But, after two years, the numbers are concerning, to say the least.
In the three years under Pettine from 2018 to 2020, with inarguably lesser-quality personnel, the Packers were 17th in EPA/play, 19th in success rate, 10th in dropback EPA, and 25th in rush EPA. Those are obviously not ideal numbers, but at least the defense did what Pettine intended to — be good at stopping the pass. Under Barry, the Packers are 21st in EPA/play, 28th in success rate, 13th in dropback EPA, and 32nd in rush EPA. They are worse in basically every aspect of the game. And while the passing defense is average, it’s not as good as it was under Pettine, and it costs even more in another area, making Green Bay the worst run defense in football.
Almost all numbers from Pettine and Barry are ironically worse than Dom Capers’. The old coordinator finished his tenure from 2009 to 2017 as 14th in EPA/play, 18th in success rate, 11th in dropback EPA, and 18th in rush EPA, with varying levels of talent on the roster.
The past
Barry got another chance in Green Bay after two bad stints elsewhere, and the basic argument is that his previous rosters lacked the necessary talent to succeed. That was certainly true in Detroit when he was the Lions’ defensive coordinator under Rod Marinelli. The head coach was the main defensive mind, and the roster was awful — 0-16 awful in Barry’s second and last season with the Detroit Lions. Still, the defense was particularly bad.
They ranked last in total yards and points per game in each season under Barry. The Lions were 30th and 31st in defensive DVOA. Detroit fired the staff after the season, and it took six seasons and three jobs before Barry got another DC opportunity.
The talent was better in Washington, but it also wasn’t great. Still, after the team was 21st and 25th under Joe Barry in 2015 and 2016, the unit jumped to 11th in defensive DVOA in 2017 under Greg Manusky, the former outside linebackers coach who the Commanders promoted internally. The fact alone that the defense was worse in the second season should be a cause for concern.
Questionable job in Green Bay
The Packers have invested so much in the defense, and it’s not like there are several busts. The unit is truly talented, to the point that most respected analysts projected the Packers to have a top-five defense before last season. Instead, they ranked 20th in DVOA. It’s fair to point out that in both seasons under Barry, the team lost a major defensive piece for a large part of the season because of injury — Jaire Alexander in 2021 and Rashan Gary in 2022. But at some point, if the coach never elevates the level of his unit, excuses are just excuses.
Most of Green Bay’s defensive players performed worse last year than they had in 2021, including Kenny Clark, De’Vondre Campbell, Rasul Douglas, Eric Stokes, Adrian Amos, and Darnell Savage. And that’s not a great sign for the coaching staff. The Packers let secondary coach Jerry Gray go, but is this change enough?
Alert
Green Bay hired Barry mostly because of his knowledge of Brandon Staley’s scheme, which he learned as the Los Angeles Rams’ linebackers coach in 2020. However, both Sean McVay and Staley passed over the opportunity to hire Barry as their defensive coordinator.
When Staley left the Rams to be the Los Angeles Chargers’ head coach, McVay preferred to go outside the organization and hire Raheem Morris — even if the external hire meant that Morris would have to learn the old system, which McVay wanted to keep. Staley hired Barry but as the linebackers coach and defensive passing game coordinator. Renaldo Hill, the former Denver Broncos defensive backs coach, was his choice to be the defensive coordinator.
The two coaches who worked with Barry decided to go in other directions. That should have told the Packers something.
What saved his job?
There is a perception that the Packers defense got better in the second half of last season, and that upgrade saved Joe Barry’s job. Well, that’s not exactly true.
Between Weeks 1 and 9, the Packers were 17th in EPA/play, 23rd in success rate, 11th in dropback EPA, and 27th in rush EPA. Between Weeks 10 and 18, the team fell to 29th in EPA/play, 29th in success rate, 17th in dropback EPA, and 31st in rush EPA. Obviously, Gary’s season-ending knee injury was important, but the projected better performance never manifested.
Could it get better?
The Packers run a version of a system that has been prevalent around the NFL because of how well it limits explosive plays. For instance, Vic Fangio, Brandon Staley, and Ejiro Evero, whom the Packers passed over in 2021, called similar schemes with much better results. So what could be done in Green Bay?
Mostly, it’s a matter of adjusting the scheme to execute what their players are well-equipped to do. The Packers have three great cornerbacks to play sticky man coverage — Jaire Alexander‘s game against Justin Jefferson and the Minnesota Vikings is the best example. But what do they generally do? Soft zone.
Green Bay added defensive front players to run a one-and-half gap scheme that Staley installed with the Rams in 2020. However, Barry decided to run a version of his defense more related to what Rod Marinelli did with the Lions, and the team didn’t perform well.
It’s still early to know if and how it will happen. But if the Packers improve in 2023, it will probably involve some kind of adaptation of the system to execute things that the players are better at.
Vic Fangio is so good because he’s able to adjust his system to maximize his best players. He ran an off-ball linebacker-centric system with the San Francisco 49ers. However, the defensive line and edge defenders were the stars for the 2018 Chicago Bears. If Joe Barry can’t adapt to explore the best attributes of the Packers players, there’s no reason to insist on something that will never work.
