New Packers defensive staff promises to play a more modern style, loaded with defensive backs

Even as teams decide to try and run defenses out of two-high shells, the most innovative defensive coaches are adding defensive backs to the mix, not playing with fewer.

Mike Pettine and Joe Barry are back, and this time they’re on the cutting edge! Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. When the NFL quickly burned through defensive coaches attempting to do Vic Fangio karaoke, the trendy thing to talk about was how teams were running teams out of two-high safety looks and punishing teams for playing small ball on defense. The entire premise of Kyle Shanahan’s genius was that he could attack Cover-3 vertically with his big personnel through the air, and pound Cover-4 with diverse run schemes.

The Baltimore Ravens tree of defenses looked at teams like the San Francisco 49ers and L.A. Rams, trying to pound teams out of nickel and dime looks and said, “We dare you to try that with us.”

But maybe it’s more apt to describe this as the University of Michigan tree of defenses because the concepts go back to the college game, where the 4-2-5 has been de rigeur for a decade or more. Nearly everyone plays with 220-pound linebackers, a cadre of defensive backs, sits in quarters shells, and plays the run top-down.

Three of the top seven teams in dime defense usage last year came from this tree: Baltimore, the L.A. Chargers (with Jesse Minter), and the Seattle Seahawks, who are headed to the Super Bowl with Mike MacDonald.

The L.A. Rams were first by a mile in dime usage, and the Denver Broncos landed ninth. That’s three of the last four teams playing football this season among league leaders.

Jonathan Gannon’s Arizona Cardinals played dime the fourth-most of any team last season, and Bobby Babich’s Bills defense played dime 14.3% of snaps according to Match Quarters. That’s the sixth-most in the NFL.

Gannon now calls the defense in Green Bay, and Babich will reportedly join his staff as the passing game coordinator.

To paraphrase former longtime Packers executive Andrew Brandt: there will be defensive backs.