Jeff Hafley is leaving his job as coach at Boston College to become the defensive coordinator for the Green Bay Packers.

Jeff Hafley is leaving his job as coach at Boston College to become the defensive coordinator for the Green Bay Packers.

The Green Bay Packers announced Wednesday that Jeff Hafley, the coach of Boston College, will be leaving his job to become the defensive coordinator for the Packers.

After four years with the Eagles, Hafley will take over for Joe Barry, who was fired just recently after working as a DC for the Packers.

In a statement, the Green Bay Packers said, “We are excited to be welcoming Jeff, his wife Gina, and their daughters Hope and Leah to the Packers or the Green Bay community.”

Jeff has been a successful coach at every job he has held. He has a great track record of helping players grow at every level. We are excited for him to be in charge of our defense.

This will be Hafley’s second time working in the NFL. From 2011 to 2018, he was a defensive support coach to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Cleveland Browns, and the San Francisco 49ers.

Before he was recruited by Boston College, he worked for one year as co-defensive coordinator as well as defensive backs coach at Ohio State.

In three of Hafley’s four years as head coach, Boston College made it to a bowl game. They also beat No. 22 SMU at the Fenway Bowl to end the year.

Most recently, the 44-year-old led the Eagles with a 7-6 record, which was their best record since the 2018 season.

Hafley will have to make the Packers’ defense better. In 2023, it was ranked 22nd in scores per drive (2.0), 25th in score percentage (39%), 20th in yards per play (5.4), and 25th in third down percentage (41%).

Hafley became the third college head coach who quit on their own to become a coordinator this offseason.

Maurice Linguist, coach of Buffalo, and Kane Wommack, coach of South Alabama, quit their jobs to work together as defensive coordinators for Alabama under new coach Kalen DeBoer.

Several well-known coaches have been hired and fired since the end of the 2023 season. Nick Saban, the former coach of Alabama, retired, and DeBoer took over his job.

Then, Washington hired Arizona boss Jedd Fisch to take his place. Because of this, the Wildcats chose Brent Brennan, the coach at San Jose State, to replace Fisch.

Jim Harbaugh left Michigan not long after capturing the national championship to become the new head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers. To take his place, Wolverines offensive coach Sherrone Moore was promoted.

ESPN’s Pete Thamel says that Hafley, who has been the Eagles’ coach for four years, is likely to leave the school and become the Green Bay Packers’ defensive coordinator.

Joe Barry was fired from the Packers after being fired for being a bad coach. Barry’s defenses ranked 27th in DVOA in 2018 and 25th last season, even though the team spent four clear first-round picks on that side of the ball.

The team has some good players—they went 9-8 in the regular campaign and beat the Dallas Cowboys easily in the wild-card round—but they could have done better.

According to SB Nation, the Packers interviewed a minimum of six other candidates for the defensive coordinator job.

Former Los Angeles Chargers coach Brandon Staley was one of them, but they chose to hire someone who wasn’t quite what they expected.

In 2019, he went back to college football. For one season, he was co-defensive coordinator or defensive backs coach at Ohio State before taking the job at Boston College.

The Green Bay Packers on Wednesday said that Jeff Hafley, the head coach of Boston College, would be their new defensive coordinator.

Hafley has been a defensive reinforcement coach to feed the Buccaneers of Tampa Bay, the Cleveland Browns, and the San Francisco 49ers over seven years in the NFL.

In a statement, Packers coordinator Matt LaFleur said, “We are excited to introduce Jeff, his wife Gina, and their daughters Hope and Leah to the Packers or the Green Bay community.”

Jeff has been a successful coach at every job he has held. He has a great track record of helping players grow at every level. We’re excited for him to be in charge of our defense.

In his four years at Boston College, Hafley led the Eagles in bowling eligibility three times, with records of 22–26. This season, Boston College went 7-6, and in the Fenway Bowl, they beat No. 22 SMU.

Hafley had turned down previous offers to coach in the NFL. But he’s taking this job as coordinator because he wants to work for one of the NFL’s most respected teams and because college football in general is in bad shape.