Overview
- Head Coach: Mike McCarthy
- Defensive Coordinator: Dom Capers
- Defensive Back Coach: Joe Whitt Jr. and Darren Perry
- Base Defense Scheme: Hybrid 3-4/4-3: 50% Nickel package
- Transactions: CB Tramon Williams left via Free Agency
- Draft Picks: CB Damarious Randle, Quinten Rollins
Projected Starters
| CornerBack # 1: | Sam Shields | |
| CornerBack # 2: | Casey Hayward | |
| Strong Safety : | Morgan Burnett | |
| Free Safety : | Ha Ha Clinton-Dix | |
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The Numbers
Total Fantasy Points Allowed to WR:380.96 Average Fantasy Points Per game against to WR:23.81 Total Receiving Touchdowns Allowed: 22 Total Receiving Yards Allowed:2,321 Average Receiving yards per game against: 145.06
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Strengths
Ha-Ha Clinton-Dix took 6 games to win the starting free safety role as a rookie last year. He may be more suited to playing the run even though he had a high number of missed tackles. Still he is another young guy with loads of raw talent and came up huge in their playoff loss to Seattle. That should give him confidence starting out this season and most are expecting him to take a big step forward in year 2. Morgan Burnett was the #1 rated run stopping safety last year by ProFootballFocus. If this defensive backfield continues to improve then Green Bay may not be in as many high scoring shootouts in 2015.
Weaknesses
The defensive backfield lost Tramon Williams to the Cleveland Browns this offseason. Sam Shields is expected to take over #1 cornerback responsibilities. The Packers have tried Shields on the left side but now he will operate primarily from that side this year. Its straight man to man coverage. Casey Hayward is expected to win the opposite starting cornerback position. In limited snaps last year he performed quite well so he is one to monitor early on this season. If he takes a step forward then this defensive backfield could be quite good when they aren’t asked to simply play deep vanilla coverage to protect the league. If Hayward falls apart early on then Green Bay could be in for a lot of shootout games as they are going to be quite weak behind Sam Shields if that occurs. I think the Green Bay coaching staff has lots of faith in Hayward though and that he is the main reason they let Tramon Williams walk.
Overall Outlook
Nailing down the base scheme for the Packer defense is tough. Being a defense that gets to protect leads a majority of the time for Aaron Rodgers and company, they can be near a 50% nickel or dime package look.Once Micah Hyde lost the starting free safety job to Ha-Ha he soaked up the majority of snaps being the 5th DB last year. When not offering some sort of nickel package the Packers seem to operate a hybrid type 3-4 or 4-3 defense depending generally on Julius Peppers alignments. The first couple of weeks will be key for this defense and I am taking a wait and see approach early on. I think lots of daily gamers will immediately think shootout when they see a team playing Green Bay but I am going to be cautious in assuming that early on.
