Could Packers preview their next DC on Sunday? Maybe, but it's complicated
The Packers will likely change DCs in 2024 and could pursue the Panthers' Ejiro Evero for the job. If so, Green Bay has pros and cons to weigh with his potential candidacy.
After back-to-back defensive disappointments earlier this month placed Green Bay Packers DC Joe Barry squarely in the crosshairs, his boss declined to throw him under the bus. The team will not change defensive coordinators, at least during the 2023 season.
"If I thought that was the best solution today, then we'd make that decision," Packers head coach LaFleur said. "When you're having basic communication problems and you're supposed to be in a certain coverage or certain rotation and we're not getting that communication, that's what's so disappointing to me.
"It starts with myself and then it goes to all of our assistant coaches. Obviously, the coaching wasn't up to the standard. Our performance on the field definitely showed that as well."
But regardless of what LaFleur says publicly, he surely understands that the defense cannot continue under the same leadership. The Packers will have a new defensive coordinator in 2024, and one of the plausible candidates for that job will coach for Green Bay's upcoming opponent: Carolina Panthers DC Ejiro Evero.
Sunday's game won't serve as an introduction, however. Evero worked as a defensive quality-control assistant in Green Bay in 2016 and interviewed for the Packers' defensive-coordinator job when it last opened in 2021. Passing over Evero looks foolish in hindsight as did the team's decision not to make a change this offseason when he became available again. Even so, this offseason could offer a third chance to bring Evero onto the staff.
With that in mind, Evero has a valuable opportunity to impress the Packers this week, though his potential candidacy contains more nuances than appear on the surface.
The Evero advantage
Understanding Evero's appeal doesn't require a lot of digging. The 42-year-old assistant has climbed up the coaching ladder over the past few seasons, rising from a safeties coach with the Los Angeles Rams in 2020 to a play-calling defensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos by '22. Evero caught the league's attention in that role, inheriting a defense that ranked 21st in DVOA the previous year and nearly guiding it to a top-10 finish.
And those numbers don't fully capture Evero's coaching performance in Denver. The Broncos essentially spent the entire in freefall thanks to Russell Wilson's poor play under center and head coach Nathaniel Hackett proving unable to steer the franchise toward success. The front office, seeing no realistic path toward contention in 2022, traded away star pass rusher Bradley Chubb for a first-round pick and a backup running back. Still, Evero's defenses held strong while Hackett remained in place, only allowing more than 23 points in three of those contests.
The Broncos' defensive performance in 2022 served as a valuable reminder about how different coaches running variants of the same system can have unlike impacts. Before landing in Denver, Evero worked for Rams teams that ran Vic Fangio's defense as interpreted by Brandon Staley and Raheem Morris. When Evero joined the Broncos, he succeeded Fangio as the defensive play-caller. But despite the system remaining the same at a foundational level and the players already having familiarity with the concepts, the unit looked transformed under Evero's watch.
"He's done a hell of a job. You saw it a year ago in Denver, what he did there," LaFleur said of Evero this week, adding, "I've got a lot of respect for Ejiro as a football coach. He's a great communicator. He's demanding. He holds guys accountable. I've just got a ton of respect for what he's been able to accomplish."
In Green Bay, Evero could find a situation not unlike the one he found in Denver. The Packers have run a variant of the Fangio system for the past three seasons under Barry, another former Rams assistant with whom Evero worked for four seasons. But whereas Barry's units have routinely struggled with communication -- a major issue for a defense that has run zone coverage on nearly 75% of snaps in 2023, according to NFL Next Gen Stats -- Evero's Broncos didn't experience those breakdowns nearly as often. Neither do the Panthers in 2023.
"You see it on tape. They're very well coached, first of all," LaFleur said of the Carolina defense. "He's got a really good scheme, nice wrinkles to it. I think they play very competitive, really on all three levels. And you definitely see just how hard they play. It jumps off the tape. I think they're third in total yards right now. And I know they're top 10 in a lot of categories and yards per play and all that. I think that's specifically a really telling category. I think he's done a really, really good job there."
And since becoming a defensive coordinator, Evero hasn't coached a defense with as much talent as the Packers possess. Veteran stars Jaire Alexander, Kenny Clark, and Rashan Gary form a stellar core while youngsters Lukas Van Ness, Carrington Valentine, and Quay Walker could develop into field-tilting talents in the near future. Evero had All-Pro corner Patrick Surtain II in Denver and now has Brian Burns in Carolina, but the overall quality of personnel in those two stops falls short of what Green Bay could offer.
Evero can't magically fix all that ails the Packers defense. Still, his track record suggests he can squeeze more out of the group than Barry has.
Best use of defensive personnel?
Even if Evero looks like a meaningful improvement over the Packers' current defensive coordinator, that doesn't necessarily mean he best fits their personnel. While the key members of the defensive front can handle more or less any scheme, the secondary would benefit from a shift toward different coverages.
The cornerbacks with which the Packers entered 2023 largely work best when not in zone. General manager Brian Gutekunst has prioritized size and athleticism at the position, an approach that has filled the depth chart with capable press-man corners. Granted, an All-Pro corner like Alexander can thrive in just about any situation when healthy, but the rest of the defensive backfield needs more help from the coaching staff.
Rasul Douglas and the aforementioned Valentine scored above the 75th percentile in preventing separation while in man coverage while slot corner Keisean Nixon scored above the 50th percentile. And while Douglas did perform admirably in zone as well, the Packers moved him before the trade deadline to, among other goals, open more snaps for Valentine. Yet the scheme didn't meaningfully shift to account for that change.
And that chart doesn't include Eric Stokes, the team's first-round pick in 2021. Stokes possesses elite size and athleticism that lend themselves to press-man coverage. As a rookie, when the defense played man nearly at the highest rate of the Barry era, Stokes performed at a Pro Bowl level. The following season when the Packers asked him to play more zone, he faltered.
And for all the zone coverages Barry calls in Green Bay, Evero has dialed up even more. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, the Panthers have played zone on 82.6% of dropbacks this season. Only two defenses have used more zone in 2023: the Indianapolis Colts (89%) and the Seattle Seahawks (82.9%).
"The foundation is very similar," LaFleur said of Evero's scheme. "I think there's a few things they do differently. There's certain things you're going to coach a little bit differently. But I think a lot of our fundamental rules are very, very similar."
In the time that Barry has served as the Packers' DC, other defenses have succeeded while leaning more heavily into man coverages. The New Orleans Saints, whose head coach and defensive play-caller Dennis Allen could find himself without a job this offseason, has used man on nearly 40% of dropbacks over the last three seasons. During that span, his units have never finished a season worse than 12th in DVOA (New Orleans' position entering Week 16) and ranked second overall in 2021.
Perhaps Evero would tailor his game plans toward the strengths of the Packers' secondary if hired, but a significant shift away from zone would mark a significant departure from his past.
Obstacles preventing pursuit
Assuming the Packers relieve Barry of his duties this offseason and if LaFleur still views Evero highly, that doesn't automatically mean the two sides will come together. Green Bay might not have a chance to so much as interview Evero, depending on what happens in Carolina.
Back in November, the Panthers fired head coach Frank Reich, ending his tenure after just 11 games. While the team could hire Reich's replacement from within the organization, it seems overwhelmingly more likely that the next Carolina headman comes from somewhere else.
That factor cuts both ways from the perspective of anyone hoping to hire Evero this upcoming cycle. While the Panthers' next head coach could well have a different defensive coordinator in mind and thus make Evero available, the team can prevent him from interviewing for other jobs while still under contract. This exact scenario played out this past offseason when the Broncos waited after completing the hire of Sean Payton before letting Evero out of his deal, delaying his release until Feb. 4.
Would the Packers wait until February or later to begin talking with Evero? The last time they had a DC opening, LaFleur started interviews in January and finalized Barry's hiring on Feb. 8 of that year. If the Panthers sit on Evero until selecting their next head coach, Green Bay might miss the opportunity to pursue other candidates in the interim.
And even if Evero hits the market and has interest in the Packers, he probably won't come cheaply. As part of Panthers owner David Tepper's desire to build an all-star coaching staff around Reich, he reportedly signed Evero to a three-year, $9.3 million contract. That salary made Evero one of the NFL's highest-paid defensive coordinators.
The Packers have ponied up for assistant coaches, but not always. In 2019, the team infamously declined to meet the price for special-teams coordinator Darren Rizzi, LaFleur's first choice to fill that position on his initial staff. That mistake might have cost Green Bay a championship early in LaFleur's tenure, resulting in the firing of two special-teams coordinators over his first three seasons. The team eventually made Rich Bisaccia a godfather offer to coach the units in '22, effectively erasing the savings from the decision to pass over Rizzi three years earlier.
But, of course, Carolina could retain Evero for 2024. Newly hired head coaches do occasionally retain incumbent coordinators, especially when that assistant works primarily on the opposite side of the ball. LaFleur followed that path when he first arrived in Green Bay, opting to keep defensive coordinator Mike Pettine from the previous regime. At least until a front-runner emerges for the Panthers job, the Packers and any other potential Evero suitor have no way of knowing whether the prized DC will ultimately hit the market.
-- Jason B. Hirschhorn is an award-winning sports journalist and Pro Football Writers of America member. Follow him on social media: @by_JBH on Twitter / @by_jbh on Instagram / @JBH@mastodon.social on Mastodon / @byjbh@bsky.social on Bluesky / @by_jbh on Threads