Jeff Hafley’s 3rd Down Fronts, Stunts and Pressure Packages

In this fifth and final article, we analyze the defense of Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley and take a quick look at some of the front lines and pressure formations we’re likely to see from Hafley this season.

Now that Hafley is no longer in the Robert Saleh/Kyle Shanahan coaching tree, it’s easy to see a lot of the influence of that scheme with the use of certain fronts and stunts that the 49ers and Jets under Saleh have been known to pull off. Hafley adds his own flavor to these sub-package fronts by adding a fifth and sixth rusher to the equation, something Saleh has been less inclined to do.

This, combined with the aggressiveness of the young defense, should unleash the talent and elevate the Packers defense to a new level, among the best in the league, if not this season, then soon.

Fronts and pressure

On third down, Hafley also appears to have borrowed heavily from recent scheme adjustments from Saleh and DeMeco Ryans’ time with the 49ers by utilizing a “3×1” overload front.

The overload front uses three defensive linemen on one side and one pass rusher on the other. This is the perfect complement to the single high 4-down linemen system.

This 49ers overload front illustrates what this could look like. But while the 49ers didn’t blitz much from this front, Hafley added his own flavor to the overload front with a “cross dog” blitz.

Cross dog

Match Quarters Cody Alexander has a more in-depth breakdown on his substack about this, but Hafley will call a cross-dog blitz behind the overload front. Offenses will shift the offensive line protection to the side of the overload and away from the running back, leaving the backside vulnerable to this pressure.

The ultimate goal is to neutralize the running back on defense and try to create a 2-on-1 situation. Failing that, you can create a favorable 1-on-1 situation with an interior defender who can’t slide or react in time to push the defender past the pocket when an interior defender is working against the slide.

Flush stunt

In a flush stunt, the defensive line attempts to “flush” the quarterback in some manner with their initial rushing path, while a runner wraps around the quarterback and chases him in an attempt to escape the pocket.

In this example against Georgia Tech, the wrapper is the defensive end on the slant side. The defensive line is slanting to the right, the offensive line is chasing, and the effect of the rush on the quarterback flushes him to the right. The wrapper breaks the rush and runs around to meet the quarterback as he rolls to the right.

Security attack

Sometimes we also see a weak safety attack, which creates a lot of pressure against the run and pass.

Safety blitzes from the weak side are great against the run and pass and work in a similar way to the read/heavy stunt technique discussed above.

Prospect

We’ll see how the season goes with the new scheme in place as we’ll likely see some more creativity from Hafley on 3rd down and different subpackages. It’s a more traditional static defense pre-snap, meaning “what you see is what you get”, but as the season progresses we’ll start to see trends in structure and what they like to do in certain situations and why.

For now, I don’t see much of a departure in what Hafley wants to do with the Packers defense than what he did with Boston College. He’s been pretty direct about what he wants to do with them on the field in terms of aggressiveness and what the primary structure will be. Week one against the Eagles should give us even more insight.