Packers fill DL coach role with former defensive coordinator

Paul Bretl | 1/30/2025

GREEN BAY, Wis. — The Packers have filled their defensive line coach opening. According to ESPN’s Rob Demovsky, the Packers are hiring DeMarcus Covington to fill that role.

Jeff Hafley’s job as the defensive coordinator is to establish the vision for what he wants the defense to be and what the game-plans need to look like on a weekly basis. It’s then up to the position coaches to relay that messaging to their players and make sure that throughout the week when it comes to prep, fundamentals, technique, and the understanding of the why behind each player’s role, those standards are upheld.

Covington has been in the New England Patriots organization since the 2017 season, when he got his start at the NFL level as a coaching assistant. Since then he’s held a variety of roles, which includes being the outside linebackers coach (2019), the defensive line coach (2020-2023), and most recently, the defensive coordinator.

This past season, the Patriots defensive line would rank 23rd in ESPN’s pass rush win rate metric and 16th in run-stop rate, allowing 4.4 yards per carry as a unit, which ranked 14th.

When Covington was specifically working with the defensive line, the New England front was steadily one of the more disruptive units in football. During the 2023 season, New England ranked 13th in pass rush win rate and were first in yards per carry allowed, giving up just 3.3 yards per attempt. In 2022, the Patriots were 7th in pressure rate and 4th in yards per rush attempt.

Then in 2021, New England was 11th in pressure rate and 26th in yards per carry surrendered. Lastly, in 2020, Covington’s first season in charge of the defensive line, the Patriots were 5th in pressure rate.

“We’re talking about maybe a pressure we can run, or a coverage that complements it. And he’ll go back and say, ‘Well, there was one from Oct. 9, 2022; this one from 2023,’” Patriots OLB coach Drew Wilkins explained about Covington. “His level of studying the game and being able to reference so much and put it together, this is a guy – he’s smart enough to coach every position on the team, it feels like.”

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Throughout the 2024 season, the Packers’ inconsistency when it came to pressuring the quarterback with just a four-man rush was a regular hurdle that the defense had to overcome. Particularly in games against the NFC’s best–Detroit, Minnesota, and Philadelphia–the lack of pressure on the quarterback was a lot for the defense to overcome.

In the most recent matchups against these teams, Jalen Hurts was pressured on 33% of his dropbacks, according to PFF’s metrics. Sam Darnold, meanwhile, was pressured on only 31% of his dropbacks, and Jared Goff 28% of his.

For some context around those figures, Justin Herbert was pressured on 33.8% of his dropbacks for the entire NFL season and that ranked 25th out of 42 quarterbacks. A pressure rate of 31% ranked 32nd and a 28% pressure rate ranked 38th.

Darnold and Goff would pick apart the Green Bay secondary with that time in the pocket. Darnold was 26-of-30 passing for 315 yards with three scores. Goff would 26-for-30 as well, for 215 passing yards when kept clean with one touchdown and one interception.

“I would say in those known passing situations, get back on track, third and medium plus, guys got to be able to win one on ones and there’s certain things you can do structurally to help create some one-on-one opportunities for our guys,” Matt LaFleur said. “Typically, if you put a linebacker on the ball and you space it out so that each lineman is covered, you’re going to get a 5-0, and you’ll have five one-on-ones, but somebody’s gotta win.”

Overall, the Packers defense would finish top-10 in sacks and their pressure numbers ranked around the middle of the NFL. However, many of those sacks came against lesser opponents and it’s also how those pressures were generated that illustrated the issue at hand. Oftentimes, pressures weren’t created by the four-man front winning their matchups. Rather it was Hafley drawing up blitzes or simulated pressures to throw some eye-candy at the offensive line that helped create that disruption.

When it came to the defensive front winning its one-on-one matchups, the Packers ranked 26th in ESPN’s pass-rush win rate metric.

The trickle-down effect of Hafley have to help bolster a lack-luster pass-rush was that for much of the season, we didn’t really even see the true version of Hafley’s defensive scheme in Green Bay. In one respect, it’s a credit to Hafley for his willingness and ability to adapt and adjust on the fly, while still orchestrating a top 10 defensive unit in scoring. On the other hand, this also speaks to the lack of impact plays from the front.

“I envisioned rushing four and playing three deep/four under a heck of a lot more and we ended up doing a lot of simulated blitzes and different pressures and playing a bunch of cover-2,” said LaFleur. “But I think, again, you always evolve throughout the course of the season, through the offseason, but that was the foundation, I would say, of the defense. But I thought our guys did a great job of adjusting. I thought we were playing some pretty good football at the end.”

While the pass rush faltered, the defensive front did make massive strides against the run. After years of struggling to limit opponents on the ground, the Packers ranked top-five in yards per rush allowed this season.

Slowing an opponent’s running game should put the defense in a position to find success with the offense facing predictable, long down-and-distance situations. But the ceiling for this Packers defense will ultimately be determined by their ability to get after the quarterback.

The addition of Covington to the coaching staff can hopefully help maximize a position group that the Packers have invested in heavily, both in terms of salary cap space and draft capital.

“Sometimes that’s just the way the NFL season goes,” said Brian Gutekunst. “I think, again, there was some transition to a new scheme, but I think we didn’t grow into that consistent front like we had hoped, but there were times that we showed it, so I know it’s capable. I think we’ve got the right guys. They’re workers in there, I think they’re all passionate about the game, they’re unselfish team guys so I expect us to get better there.”

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