Packers fire Joe Barry amid slew of moves that show they're serious about contending in 2024

The Green Bay Packers know they're entering a window for the Super Bowl, and Wednesday showed a willingness in every possible facet to do what's necessary.

The Green Bay Packers just went from “house money” to “on the clock,” and we’re not talking about the NFL draft.

The 2023 season provided crucial information for the Packers’ future: Quarterback Jordan Love and head coach Matt LaFleur are a winning combination, and retooling around this young offensive core offers a genuine chance to compete for a Super Bowl. Still, the team fell two games short of the sport’s biggest stage.

On Wednesday, the organization took three critical steps toward rectifying the issues that held them back last season, a tacit acknowledgment that not only is this team good enough to be a Super Bowl contender in 2024, but also that the windows close quickly. The time is now, and Green Bay is attacking the challenge from all angles.

It’s easy to imagine the Packers brass sitting down and trying to identify why the season didn’t finish the way they’d hoped and why they faced some of the adversity they did throughout the season.

Some of it fixed itself over the last few months, and Love took off like a rocket toward superstardom, the young receivers (mostly) stopped running the wrong routes, and Aaron Jones got back healthy. But even he was hurt with a hamstring injury nearly half the season at some version of less than 100%.

The tally of crucial factors in the shortcomings of the year can be distilled plainly:

• Defense

• Soft-tissue injuries to key players

• Kicking game

The Packers addressed the first of those concerns by relieving defensive coordinator Joe Barry of his duties, a move the team announced Wednesday morning. During his time in Green Bay, the Packers rank 24th in expected points added per play (EPA/play), 30th in success rate, and 31st in EPA/rush. Given the talent investment on that side of the ball and how those rankings manifested themselves on the field in the form of soft coverage and poor situational football, the obvious conclusion left Barry no longer in charge of the defense.

But it wasn’t obvious at all LaFleur would fire his long-time friend, someone widely liked in the organization as a person. Making this move signals a willingness to go beyond the kind of cronyism that led Barry to Green Bay in the first place -- there’s no reasonable way to argue he was the most qualified candidate for the job originally -- and find the best defensive coordinator for the Packers as they reset around vastly different expectations.

This was a mistake from the start, one of many the Packers cannot afford to repeat, amplifying the pressure to get this hire right. Myriad quality candidates will be considered as there is a dearth of defensive positional coaches who get the same kind of opportunities to become head coaches as their offensive counterparts. Get this hire wrong, and the next time they’re looking for a DC in two or three years, Love and this young core will be exponentially more expensive than they are now.