Green Bay Packers Report Cards: Coaching and Personnel After 2024 Season

The Green Bay Packers won more games in the regular season but came up empty in the playoffs. Here are the coaching and personnel grades.
Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst walks on the field before the Week 1 game at Arena Corinthians in São Paulo, Brazil.
Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst walks on the field before the Week 1 game at Arena Corinthians in São Paulo, Brazil. / Tom Silverstein / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers stormed into last year’s playoffs, crushed the Cowboys and looked every bit like a future championship contender when they fell just short in the divisional round against the Super Bowl-bound 49ers.

Adding fuel to the fire, general manager Brian Gutekunst signed an elite safety in Xavier McKinney, added a stud running back in Josh Jacobs and drafted a potential star linebacker in Edgerrin Cooper.

With those key additions, the Packers won two more games but faded down the stretch and were bounced in the wild-card round of the playoffs.

Here are the coaching and personnel grades to pair with our unit report cards.

Coaching

First-year defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley did a phenomenal job. Was he too conservative at times? Maybe, but it’s hard to get too aggressive with the No. 1 cornerback playing one-third of the snaps and two rookies earning starting jobs in the secondary.

Without a lockdown cornerback or a consistent pass rush, the Packers finished fifth in total defense and sixth in points allowed, their best marks since winning the Super Bowl in 2010, and were fourth in takeaways.

Rich Bisaccia’s special teams, once again, underwhelmed. While Brandon McManus made some clutch field goals and Karl Brooks had a game-saving blocked field goal, the return units made no impact and there were game-turning mistakes against the Bears in Week 18 and the Eagles in the playoffs.

What about the offense coordinated by Adam Stenavich and led by coach Matt LaFleur?

Not long after arriving from the Titans, backup quarterback Malik Willis helped the Packers to back-to-back wins over the Colts and Titans. What he did was incredibly impressive. Then, he came on in relief and threw the key pass to beat the Jaguars. Willis defied expectations, but you can’t possibly ignore the coaches’ part in that success.

Credit to the coaches for leaning into those run-first game plans the rest of the season. Josh Jacobs was the driving force behind the attack. That seems like a common-sense approach, but Mike McCarthy and LaFleur too often neglected strong running games.

Where the coaches on offense get dinged is for not taking full advantage of Jacobs. A powerful rushing attack should mean a strong play-action attack, but those things never meshed.

Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur walks to the field before the playoff game against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur walks to the field before the playoff game against the Philadelphia Eagles. / Eric Hartline-Imagn Images

The Ravens, Eagles and Packers had the most run-heavy attacks in the NFL. The Lions had a powerful run game, too.

On play-action passes, the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson ranked first in passer rating, the Lions’ Jared Goff ranked fourth and the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts ranked sixth. Jordan Love was a solid 10th but his completion percentage was 2.4 percent worse than on standard dropbacks. Out of 32 passers with 300-plus dropbacks, that was the fifth-biggest negative differential.

That’s all nitpicking around the edges.

In the biggest moments, the Packers fell short. They were 0-6 against the NFC’s top teams in the regular season. Too often in those games, they simply weren’t competitive in the first half. They were trounced at home by the Lions and Vikings deep into the third quarter, and slow starts doomed them again in losses at Detroit and Minnesota in December and at Philadelphia in the playoffs.

They were almost swept by the NFC North teams. Against the Bears in Week 18, LaFleur’s horrendous timeout probably cost the Packers the game.

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Only Brooks’ blocked field goal at Chicago prevented the Packers from going 0-6 in the division. From that perspective, Green Bay is much closer to last place in the NFC North than first place. With the Bears hiring Ben Johnson as coach to pair with last year’s No. 1 overall pick, Caleb Williams, the arrow might finally be pointed up in Chicago.  

Simply put, when the Packers needed to play their best football, they did not.

“In 2023, I thought we were playing overall as a football team our very best football at the end of the season, which is very important to me,” Gutekunst said. “If we’re going to go chase championships, you’ve got to be doing that.”

Grade: C-minus.

Personnel

On the heels of last year’s late-season success, general manager Brian Gutekunst made two huge moves in free agency by signing safety Xavier McKinney and running back Josh Jacobs.

Signing proven players seems like it should be easy, but how much money is wasted by teams every offseason? But McKinney and Jacobs were superb additions in every way.

“I think where they exceeded my expectations is how quickly they embraced our culture here and then how much they positively impacted it at such a fast pace,” Gutekunst said. “So, really happy to have those guys. I think they’re about the right stuff. They certainly made us better this year and expect that they will continue to do that as we go.”

At the end of camp, Gutekunst made two moves that involved the Titans. First, sent a seventh-round pick to Tennessee to acquire quarterback Malik Willis. The Packers probably would have missed the playoffs without that trade. 

Next, he claimed kicker Brayden Narveson off waivers from the Titans. That move probably would have cost the Packers a playoff berth if not for signing Brandon McManus after Narveson missed his fifth kick in Week 6.

With plenty of money to spend and a sound process in picking and choosing who to sign/re-sign, Gutekunst should be active again this offseason.

The draft, on the other hand, didn’t produce a lot of first-year impact. First-round offensive lineman Jordan Morgan missed most of the season with a shoulder injury that ultimately required surgery and third-round running back MarShawn Lloyd missed all but one game due to a miles-long list of ailments.

Second-round linebacker Edgerrin Cooper was superb, though. He’s got a chance to be a great player. The rookie defensive backs, Javon Bullard in the second round and Evan Williams in the fourth round, had their moments, as well.

Gutekunst handed Jordan Love a $220 million contract extension, probably overvalued his receivers and pass rushers, and flubbed the kicking situation to start the season.

Looking ahead to 2025, Morgan must play like a starter, wherever he lines up. Lloyd must provide the lightning to Jacobs’ thunder. Love needs to play with greater efficiency, the receivers need to play with greater consistency and re-signing McManus seems like a necessity.

With just three top-100 draft picks, Gutekunst can’t afford any misses this time.

Grade: B.

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.