Green Bay Packers Head Coach Matt LaFleur continues reshaping his offensive coaching staff but the move that wasn’t announced Tuesday afternoon is getting far more attention.
Special Teams Coordinator Maurice Drayton will not be asked back according to Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Drayton’s dismissal will result in LaFleur hiring a third coordinator for his Special Teams entering his fourth year on the job. The units were a problem, to put it mildly, and they became a disaster in the NFC Divisional Playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
Under Drayton’s direction, the Green Bay Special Teams finished dead last in Rick Gosselin’s 43rd annual rankings, 32nd out of 32 teams. In Sean Mennenga’s 2nd and final season as coordinator, the units finished 29th. It’s been 14 years since Green Bay finished in the top half of the league on special teams.
Even Mason Crosby, coming back from a 2020 season where he didn’t miss a field goal attempt, couldn’t be the steadying influence for the rest of the unit. The Packers changed punters early in the season, cutting draft choice J.K. Scott while trading for the Rams’ Corey Bojorquez. Then another failed draft pick, long snapper Hunter Bradley was released in favor of practice squad member Steven Wirtel. That changed two thirds of the placement operation and it led to wild results. Take the Cincinnati game where Crosby missed three potential game winning field goals.
A reliable kick returner was never located either. Kylin Hill struggled until a season ending knee injury in October and that left rookie Amari Rodgers who appeared unsure even catching punts at times.
After Green Bay gave up two punt return touchdowns a year ago, the cover teams had mixed results with bottom of the roster players. Injuries took away core special team performers like Will Redmond and Ty Summers for most, if not all of the season.
Week after week, Drayton tried to keep a positive face in front of the media. He even called himself “Positive Pete” trying to rally the troops but just when it appeared mistakes in one phase got better or were solved, another phase would have breakdowns.
It all reached a head at Lambeau last week when the Special Teams had a field goal blocked on the final play of the first half that could have given the Packers a 10-0 lead. The second half kickoff was returned to midfield by the 49ers Deebo Samuel. The blocked punt with under 5 minutes to play resulted in San Francisco’s only touchdown and on the walk-off, season ending field goal, the not so special teams had only 10 players on the field.
LaFleur said after the season he is going to take a more active role with the Special Teams moving forward and he’ll also study how other teams utilize veteran players on the units wherever feasible. The third phase of the team has been a distant third for far too long.
As for the staff promotions. LaFleur named Jason Vrable the Wide Receivers Coach/Passing Game Coordinator. He’ll take on the role held by Luke Getsy as the Quarterbacks Coach last year. Getsy has joined the Chicago Bears staff of new Head Coach Matt Eberflus as their Offensive Coordinator.
With the promotion announced Monday of Adam Stenavich as LaFleur’s new OC, Assistant Offensive Line Coach Luke Butkus will take over for Stenavich as the team’s primary Offensive Line Coach.
Ryan Mahaffey, who joined the team as a Quality Control Assistant on Offense last year, will now be the Assistant Offensive Line Coach. Finally, Connor Lewis, with the team in a variety of roles for the past seven years has been named the Assistant Quarterback Coach.
LaFleur still needs to hire a lead assistant to work with his quarterbacks and he could also be in the market for a Tight Ends Coach if Justin Outten is lured away by former Offensive Coordinator Nathaniel Hackett who’s now putting together his Denver Broncos staff.
