Anthony Perkins, Grandson of NFL Star, Joins Packers’ Coaching Staff

Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur's coaching staff for the 2024 NFL season will include at least six assistants from the college ranks.
Anthony Perkins, Grandson of NFL Star, Joins Packers’ Coaching Staff
Anthony Perkins, Grandson of NFL Star, Joins Packers’ Coaching Staff /
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur continues to plunder the college ranks in filling out his coaching staff with the reported addition of Anthony Perkins to serve an assistant defensive backs coach for new defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley.

The news was first reported by 247 Sports’ Matt Zenitz.

Perkins was the cornerbacks coach at Oregon State the past two seasons. According to the school, eight defensive backs earned all-Pac-12 honors during his two seasons. The Beavers led the conference with 71 passes defensed in 2022 and added 63 more in 2023 en route to back-to-back bowl appearances.

Oregon State’s coach last season, Jonathan Smith, is the new head coach at Michigan State. Smith was hired by MSU in November, so Perkins was the defensive coordinator for the Sun Bowl. The 2023 defensive coordinator, Trent Bray, was promoted to full-time head coach and opted to hire Raiders assistant coach Keith Heyward to be his coordinator.

Perkins was the cornerbacks coach at Colorado State from 2019 through 2021. In 2017 and 2018, he was assistant to the head coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, with his focus on defensive backs.

Perkins played collegiately at Colorado from 2007 through 2011. He was a team captain as a senior and had three interceptions as a three-year starter. He was a high school All-American after starring at safety, quarterback and running back.

Perkins is the grandson of former Dallas Cowboys running back Don Perkins, a sixth-time Pro Bowler who rushed for 6,217 yards in eight seasons. In the Packers’ 34-27 win at Dallas in the 1966 NFL Championship Game, he had 108 yards and one touchdown.

He is a member of the Cowboys Ring of Honor and is a Texas Sports Hall of Famer.

“Don Perkins, what a great career he had as a collegiate player at the University of New Mexico and then getting to play for the Dallas Cowboys for those seasons,” Perkins said before this year’s Sun Bowl. “The biggest impact I think that he made on my life and when I talked to a lot of other people who knew him as a person, it was bigger than football for him. Football was what he did, but it wasn't who he was. He was very much a relational person who poured into those around him and I think the legacy that he left behind was a legacy beyond football.

“It was a legacy of being a great father, being a great grandfather, being a great friend. He was able to use this platform to make an impact beyond the game, and I think that's been the biggest impact that he left for me was just being able to use a platform that you have to build into those around you, to pour into those that you’re around.”

Along with Hafley, who had been the coach at Boston College since 2020, the new staff features Perkins (Oregon State), Sean Duggan (Boston College) and Vince Oghobaase (Boston College) on defense as well assistant offensive line coach Eddie Gordon (UAB) and assistant receivers coach Myles White (Miami).

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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.