Although the loss of Aaron Jones has hit the Green Bay fan base hard, NFL insiders seem unphased in their growing belief in the Packers future.
Shortly after the team swapped out Jones for a younger Josh Jacobs, respected analyst John Middlekauf took the opening minutes of his show on Colin Cowherd’s The Volume Network, to laud the Packers potential on offense.
“Before free agency or the draft it was hard to not buy stock in the operation.” Middlekauf said of the Packer’s offense “Your offense if it just sustains some of what we saw with Jordan love at the end is going to be really good.”
Then, he laid out what he believes to be the missing ingredient.
“On the defensive side of the ball…your coordinators let’s face it have taken a lot of s***. You were ready to run Joe Barry out of town two games into his stint, Petine, you guys couldn’t stand. Before that some of the guys McCarthy had… it’s just…can you get a guy that goes ‘this guy’s going to be a head coach’ and that’s a big difference. For example the 49ers who have had more playoff success recently and the Rams who won the Super Bowl, they both had good defensive coordinators…If Jeff Hafley is in the conversation to be a head coach in 2 years, I don’t see how you guys aren’t legit NFC contenders.”
Middlekauff is spot on with the fan base’s view of their former coordinators and he’s absolutely right about what needs to happen in Green Bay to take the next step. You look at the 49ers who have had Robert Saleh and D’Amico Ryans, and the Rams who have had Brandon Staley and Raheem Morris and you see a clear path to contention. When you have a talented offensive head coach you need an upper level defensive coordinator. It’s far past time for Green Bay to have stopped messing around with the position and here’s to hoping they got it right with Hafley. How sweet it Is that just a year after everyone was roasting the Packers for trading Aaron Rodgers, that we are now sitting here talking about contending.
