Don’t look now, but Jeff Hafley has done an impressive job with the Green Bay Packers defense. While the unit entered week 7 as the 15th best in defensive DVOA, the results especially in the second half have been wildly positive. And it happened again on Sunday, a big reason why the Packers beat the Houston Texans 24-22.
Over the last five weeks, this is how many second-half points the Packers have allowed in each of the games: 7 (Tennessee Titans), 3 (Minnesota Vikings), 6 (Los Angeles Rams), 3 (Arizona Cardinals), 3 (Houston Texans). And that stretch included some good offenses, like the Vikings and Texans.”It was outstanding,” Packers head coach Matt LaFleur said about the defensive effort against the Texans. “I can’t say enough great things about our defense, about the position (Jeff Hafley) and our staff put our guys in, and the aggressive mindset.”
The ability to generate pressure was particularly impressive in this game. According to Next Gen Stats, Texans quarterback CJ Stroud was under pressure in 50% of his dropbacks. It included two sacks from linebacker Eric Wilson, one from safety Xavier McKinney, and another from edge rusher Rashan Gary — his first since week 1.
“You can tell that going into this, we didn’t want to allow CJ (Stroud) to get comfortable. CJ is a real guy in this league, and he’s gonna be for a really long time,” LaFleur added. “Just to apply that pressure on him, obviously overcoming some very bad circumstances throughout the course of the game in terms of being back, our defense was kinda backed up. Hafley does an outstanding job, and so does the rest of our staff.”
Next week, the Packers defense has the opportunity to keep playing at a high level. Before week 7, the Jacksonville Jaguars were 20th in offensive DVOA.
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