Pack-A-Day Podcast - Episode 2796 - Packers Finalize Their 2026 Coaching Staff!!!

0:00What's on Packers Nation? Andy Herman here, Packer Day podcast. Welcome into an all new episode. We've got a great show lined up for you today. We're going to be going over the Packers coaching staff. They finally finalized their coaching staff before we get there. Thank you so much for joining me. You can find me at Andy Herman NFL in the podcast at Packer Day podcast. Always appreciate you guys so freaking much. So thanks for being here. As mentioned, we are going to be talking about the Packers finalized coaching staff. They might be saying Andy, that was Thursday today is Sunday as it's released. Just know I did record Friday and Saturday's episodes in advance prior to the release of the coaching staff. So that's what I'm doing it today on Sunday. So here we are on Sunday breaking down the entire coaching staff. I did still want to go over it. I

1:03do think it's worthwhile. One new name that we didn't know about previously and just kind of seeing it in its totality. I think there's some interesting takeaways from it as well. So we'll get to that momentarily. Shout out to the Green Bay Packers, by the way, about two weeks had a schedule from where they were a year ago. It was around April 4th last year that they released their final coaching staff. This year was what March 19th. So tip of the cap to you, Green Bay Packers, getting that out a couple weeks ahead of where you were a year ago. Before we jump into today's show, shout out to our brand new Packer Day podcast, YouTube member Swindle 4281. Thank you so much for signing up. If you haven't checked out those memberships yet, go do so. Over on YouTube, there's four different tiers available, members only content, and of course, the weekly members only Q&A as well. worthwhile. Check it out. Great options available. Again, over on YouTube. I also want to shout out Ross Uglum. He is back daily draft, whether you're listening on the audio podcast or on YouTube, you're getting a brand new Ross Uglum draft centric video and audio episode every single day.

2:03We've got a couple of those uploaded already for next week. If you are a member, you get those ahead of time when he uploads a bunch in advance. So yeah, go check that out. And if you're not checking out Ross's episodes, I highly recommend it. I'll just put it this way. I know some of you might just take the, you know, the pathway of I'll wait to see who the Packers draft and then, you know, we'll dig into it afterwards. I get that. I understand it. I'll just say this. If you start knowing players ahead of time going into the draft, it makes the entire draft experience so much more fun because you have like a rooting interest in who you want the Packers to draft and whether it's via Ross, Andrew Merteg is going to be doing some bonus content for us here on the show as well. He did an episode with Kyle Fellows recently breaking out the 10 most likely options at Pick 52 for Green Bay. Once you start getting to know these players, it makes the draft day experience so much more fun. So check out the stuff from Andrew, check out the stuff from Ross cannot recommend it enough. As mentioned, I am recording this very, very early on Friday morning. I'm also doing this one a little bit in advance as well. And that's why again, you're seeing this now is because I am

3:09recording it on Friday at four Sundays. Again, I already recorded Saturdays and Fridays in advance. Just trying to get a couple things done ahead of time. I'm going to be a little bit out of town, but most importantly, as mentioned, going to be doing the backdrop over the course of the next four days. So that's going to be taking up some time. Tuesday should be the reveal, the Justice Miscade episode should be the review or the reveal next Tuesday for those of you on the YouTube channel. All right, before we get into the finalized coaching staff for Green Bay, it's worth looking at who is no longer on the staff for the Green Bay Packers. The people who are no longer on this staff are Ryan Mahafi, wide receiver coach from a year ago, Sean Manion, quarterbacks coach from last year, Derek Antley, the past game coordinator, and I should just say the passing game coordinator on the defensive side of the ball. Of course, Jeff Hathley, the defensive coordinator, Wendell Davis, the quality control coach, Ryan Downard, defensive backs coach, Sean Duggan, linebackers coach, Rich Basasia, special teams coordinator, and Byron Store, the assistant

4:12special teams coach. That's a lot of turnover. That's a lot of change. Some of it was at least partially due to Green Bay being okay with coaches moving on. They could have blocked Ryan Mahafi, they could have blocked Derek Antley, they could have blocked Ryan Downard, they could have blocked, yeah, actually, that's it. Store got a promotion. Basasia decided to leave on his own accord. Wendell Davis got a promotion, Sean Manion got a promotion. So there were, and of course, Hathley got a promotion as well. So there were a handful of promotions, but he could have blocked some of those other moves, and he did not. Interesting. I don't know why. Maybe he would have fired a couple of them, and he didn't want to, or they just had other jobs lined up. So there was no need to. Maybe they really wanted to go to a different spot or ready to be done. I don't know. I don't know what the reason was, but he could have blocked a few of those moves. He did not do so and decided to go in a different direction. But either way, whether it be due to promotions, or whether it be due to, you know, him allowing some of his coaches to go to different destinations,

5:15there are a lot of coaches who are gone, and that means there are a lot of new faces on this coaching staff as well. Whether that or whether or not that turns out to be a good thing or a bad thing, time will tell the most likely scenario is there's going to be some good. There's going to be some bad. Some of these coaches will work out great and will elevate their units and others will not work out and may may take a step back with their individual units. We're just going to have to kind of wait and see, but I do think Green Bay's done a really nice job overall of filling out this coaching staff. Let's look at it in its totality. Of course, you've got Matt LaFlora said coach from an offensive side of the ball, offensive coordinator Adam Stenevich. A lot of a lot of interesting comments on Steno really seemingly starting when he made the comments about Matthew Golden prior to the playoff game. I didn't see much bubbling up about Adam Stenevich prior to that spot. I think you have a losing streak and people are frustrated and then, you know, everyone wants more Matthew Golden and your offensive coordinator comes out and says, you're not getting more Matthew Golden.

6:18And it was a weird situation. I've said this before. I'll say it again. I think Steno was just trying to set expectations knowing that Matthew Golden was probably, you know, the fourth or fifth wide receiver going into that game. So to say, like, yeah, he's going to have a huge game or he's going to be a huge part of the game plan. I don't think that does anybody any favors. If he was, you certainly don't want to tell the Bears about it. And if he's not, you don't want to put a bunch of pressure on Matthew Golden to go out and perform when you might only get a few snaps in the game. So I think Steno was just answering it, you know, pretty honestly and to try to protect the expectations for what we're going to be out there from Matthew Golden. And then of course, Matthew Golden goes out and has a big game and the Packers lose and everyone's upset with how the season ends. And I've defended Steno. Not even, actually, I want to take that back. I haven't defended Steno by listing the things of like, here's what Steno does great. I've just said, hey, it's difficult to understand if he's really great or really bad or anything in between because it's Matt's offense. He's calling the plays. We don't really get to see what Steno is doing on a day-to-day

7:22basis. However, that changes quite a bit when you get the NFL PA grades and the players grade him as a C and do not seemingly have a glowing thought in, you know, world view of what Adam Stenevich brings to the team. That's not a good grade. That's not a great sign. Whether or not that means that, you know, he should be like, go or that they should have looked elsewhere. Who knows? A lot of you think, yes, I'm still kind of indifferent to be honest. I don't think Steno changes the calculus of things as much as maybe people think. This is again, Matt LaFlaur's offense and he's calling the plays. It's his baby. That's where he spends the majority of his time. Yeah, I don't think it on it. And I've seen a lot of people too say, what I would have liked to have seen is Adam Stenevich to mode it back to offensive line coach and bring in a new mind for offensive coach. It's just not how it works. Steno has to agree to that. If he might just say,

8:24if you're going to make me offensive line coach again, just fire me. I'm not taking that job, and I'll go find an offensive coordinator job in college, which he definitely could have done. So yeah, I don't think there's any chance you were going to be able to put him back in that offensive line. It's not as simple as that. He'd have to accept it. I don't think he would have. I don't think he should have. I'm just saying like, I think he would have found an offensive coordinator job in college or just a better opportunity than getting demoted. That would have been a brutal look for his career. So I don't think there's ever a world in which he would have done that. What I've loved, Adam Stenevich, back as offensive line coach, moving on from Luke Buckess and a new offensive coordinator, which absolutely or putting Manion as offensive coordinator, giving him that opportunity and putting Steno back as offensive line coach. Absolutely. That seems like it would be something that would work. Even then, Manion's not taking the Green Bay job because he gets to call plays in Philly. So that's an advantage there. It gets messy. It gets sticky sometimes. Does that mean he couldn't have let Steno go and brought somebody you knew in? No, he could have gone in that direction. He decided not to. I'll just say one more time. I don't think this is going to, I don't think

9:30your win totals in 2026 or what this team is going to be. Regardless of almost anybody in that offensive coordinator role, I don't think it would have changed anything. And by the way, if Steno would have left for another job or if Steno got fired, do you want to know who the offensive coordinator probably was going to be? Either Jason Vrable or Luke Getzi, two players that you have on your staff. I don't think it was going to be some crazy new coach coming in with crazy new ideas. I think it probably would have been or or Nathaniel Hackett. It would have been one of those three. And maybe you think that maybe that would have been better for you. Okay. But two of those three are already on staff. And if you're asking me right now, flat out, would I rather have Steno in that role or Hackett in that role? I would have rather had Steno in that role. It's not even particularly close for me. Again, it doesn't move the needle one way or the other. If you wanted him gone, I'm sorry, he's back. If you wanted him back, great. He's back. To me, it's mostly

10:30indifference is how I would kind of put it. My passing game coordinator, Jason Vrable is back. He was a offensive assistant for Green Bay in 2019, wide receivers coach in 2020 in 2021, wide receivers coach in passing game coordinator in 2020 in 23. And then they just took the wide receivers coach away. Not I don't think that was a demotion, by the way. I think that was, hey, we want you to focus on passing game coordinator. And we're going to hire somebody else. In that case, it was my happy to be the wide receivers coach. I get I don't think my guess is he didn't take a pay cut or get a quote unquote demotion. I think they just wanted him to focus solely on that passing game coordinator role. And that's what he remains in in 2026. So this is this third year in that passing game coordinator role. Quarterbacks coach is Luke Getsey. He comes back. He was a senior offensive assistant last year in 2025 for Green Bay and for Matt LaFlor. Now he's the quarterback's coach, but that's not all. He also gets the assistant head coach title on the offensive side of the ball. They gave two assistant head coach titles, one on offense,

11:32one on defense. We'll talk about the defense of one later. But for the offensive side, Luke Getsey gets that title along with quarterback's coach. If you remember, he was the Packers quarterback's coach in 2019 when LaFlor took over. And in 2020 and in 2021, when he was the quarterback's coach and the passing game coordinator, which happened to be two phenomenal years for Green Bay. And we're the first two years of Jordan Love's career. So he has coached Jordan Love in this spot before. As mentioned, he gets that assistant head coaching role. His overall experience. He was the Packers quality control coach in 2014 and 2015 under Mike McCarthy, the wide receivers coaching Green Bay under McCarthy in 2016 and 2017. In 2018, he leaves to become Mississippi State's offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach. Interesting than that. Matt LaFlor brings them back in 2019 as a quarterback's coach. And we talked about quarterback's coach and passing game coordinator was the Bears offensive coordinator in 2022 and 2023. He had Justin Fields, not a great situation.

12:37Then he goes to the Raiders in 2024. They have a brutal offense, not a great situation. It's fired in 2024 by the Raiders midseason, becomes a Packers defensive consultant the rest of that year than a senior offensive assistant last year and a quarterback's coach and assistant head coach now in 2026. I running back coach Ben Sermons is back. He has been with the Packers since 2016, all as a running backs coach. I don't see any reason why he'd want to move on from him. He's been really good. He's been good with Aaron Jones, Jamal Williams. He's been good with Josh Jacobs. It's not his fault that Martian Lloyd has constantly hurt. He got an undrafted free agent in a manual Wilson to play well. He got a Chris Brooks street free agents to come in and play well. He's done pretty much all the way or done well all the way around. I think there's no reason to move on from him. I think it's great to have Ben Sermons back in 2026. White receivers coach is Noah Pauley. We've talked about this one before. He comes over from Penn State where he didn't really get any time to coach in Penn State. He got hired as a Penn State

13:39White receiver coach and then took the Green Bay job after he coach Christian Watson when he was a White receivers coach with North Dakota State. At Iowa State, when he was a White receivers coach there, he was partially responsible for the development of both Jalen Noel and Jaden Higgins, two second round picks. I think they were both second round picks for the Houston Texans just a year ago. So he's he's had great success coaching White receivers in college. We'll now get the opportunity to coach Christian Watson again as well as the rest of that White receiver room. We'll be right back. They have assistant White receivers coach Rob Grasso. He's been with Green Bay since 2023 all in the offensive side of the ball. So that is a familiar position for him. Tyden's coach remains John Dunn came over as a senior analyst in 2021 with Matt LaFour. 2022 Tyden's coach and he's been the Tyden's coach ever since. He did spend some time as Yukon's offensive coordinator back in 2018. But the majority of his career has been in Green Bay and again,

14:45he's been the Tyden's coach in 2022 helping Tucker Kraft develop. Again, no reason to move on from John Dunn. He's done a really nice job overall with that group. I think one of the more perplexing decisions, at least on the surface, is Luke Buckis being back as the offensive line coach. Eddie Gordon returns as assistant offensive line coach as well. Gordon was hired as the assistant offensive line coach in 2024. Buckis has been the offensive line coach since 2022. There's an argument to be made. There's a legitimate argument to be made that 2022 when Buckis took over is when you saw the steep decline on the offensive line. Now David Baktiari's injury, the moving on from Corey Linsley, some of those moves go into that in a very significant way as well. He certainly helped develop a player like Zach Tom. But last year specifically, last year specifically, Rashid Walker to me arguably the worst year of his career,

15:46Elton Jenkins, arguably the worst year of his career. Aaron Banks may be due to injury, but you didn't get the ROI on him after a four year, $77 million deal. Anthony Belton didn't exactly look like a second round pick. And Jordan Morgan didn't take a significant step under the tutelage of Luke Buckis. And the line as a whole took a massive step backwards and was the Achilles heel of the offense so much so that Matt Laflour who basically never calls anything out called out the very poor play of the offensive line the day after the loss to the Bears. I thought this would be almost a foregone conclusion that they would make some changes on the offensive line staff. And they didn't. It's the same too. Luke Buckis and Eddie Gordon. Hopefully they can turn this thing around, but I legitimately expected change there. Maybe Buckis is really good. Tough to know from the outside, but that offensive line did not perform last year. And it's now going to be up to Luke Buckis to prove that Matt Laflour was right in keeping him and that that offensive line can have a major turnaround in 2026.

16:49Passing game specialist slash game management specialist is Connor Lewis. He returns in that role, same position he was in in 2025. New coach, one we did not know about until again, we basically got the news on Thursday, TC McCartney, offensive quality control coach. He spent time as an LSU grad assistant, Colorado grad assistant, Brown's offensive assistant, 49ers offensive assistant and quality control coach, back to LSU as a grad assistant, back to the 49ers as an offensive assistant and quality control coach, Brown Coast quarterbacks coach, back to the Brown's as an offensive assistant, Brown's tight ends coach, Patriots quarterbacks coach in 2024 for Drake May's rookie year. And now that did not coach in 2025 as far as I could tell, and now of course Packers quality control coach, good experience, spent time with the 49ers again, Drake May's rookie quarterbacks coach seems like a good offensive quality control coach to have and just another helpful piece within the coaching staff. Meanwhile, Jeremiah Cologne stays on as the offensive assistant. He was in that same position

17:51in 2025. That is your offensive staff. Again, Jason Vrable, passing game coordinator, Adam Stenevich, offensive coordinator, Luke Gette, quarterbacks coach and assistant head coach, Ben Sermon's running backs coach, Noah Pauley, wide receivers coach, John Dunn, tight ends coach, Luke Buckis offensive line coach, Eddie Gordon offensive line assistant, passing game specialists and game management specialist, Connor Lewis, TC McCartney is the offensive quality control coach, and Jeremiah Cologne is the offensive assistant defensive staff. Of course, defensive coordinator is Jonathan Gannon, we've spent a lot of time talking about him. Defensive line coach is Vince Ogibasey. That's an interesting one. He was the assistant defensive lines coach to to Marcus Covington. He now gets the head defensive line coach position. He was a bossing college guy, but did not go with Jeff Haffley. He was a Jeff Haffley guy, but did not go with Jeff Haffley. So that's interesting. He stays in Green Bay. If you watch practices and you watch the defensive line, you will love Vince Ogibasey. He is a very fun coach, ton of energy, really gets excited for

18:55his guys. Anytime they do something good, he is one of those coaches that you enjoy having out in training, can't practice. How he does is a full time defensive line coach and things like that behind the scenes in meeting rooms. No idea, but on the field, he's a ton of fun and a ton of energy. And I'm sure a lot of the defensive linemen are going to be very happy that he is now the interior defensive line coach or just a defensive line coach, I should say. Meanwhile, to Marcus Covington goes from defensive line coach to outside line backers coach, run game coordinator and assistant head coach. So he gets three new titles for his coming back to Green Bay in 2026. A lot of promotions. The big thing here is A, he is a outside line backers coach. If you're running a fourth three, you do not have an outside line backers coach. If you're running a three four, you do have an outside line backers coach. So while we have not heard from Jonathan Ganon yet, we have heard multiple hints from Brian

20:00Gudakins that three four seems like it's going to be the direction they're going in. This is another tell that Green Bay is going to be running a three four system because the Marcus Covington is a outside line backers coach. Again, also run game coordinator on the defensive side and assistant head coach. What I will say here is Covington gets the luxury of now coaching Michael Parsons. He did before as defensive and that could have been a Parsons thing too. Maybe Parsons said, Hey, I want, I want Covington as my coach. It could have been just MATLA floor making that decision. Covington could have said, Hey, I'm cool with this, but I want to coach Mikeus still. There's a lot of different things that could be at play here, but he takes over in that role. And again, run game coordinator assistant head coach as well. So a couple, couple promotion or at least title promotions there for to Marcus Covington linebackers coaches Sam Seifkis. We've talked about him defensive coordinator from Virginia Tech. A lot of great experience. He also spent time as a linebackers coach in the past with Jonathan Ganon. So he's going to be very familiar, not only with Ganon, but his scheme and his defense as well. Secondary coach and passing

21:02game coordinator on the defensive side is Bobby Babbage, former bills defensive coordinator. He also spent time in the secondary with the bills. One year as an assistant defensive backs coach and four years as a safety coach, it does seem he will probably primarily work with the safeties because they now have a corner backs coach, which is Daniel Bullocks. He spent time as Northern Iowa's defensive backs coach, Eastern Michigan's corner backs coach, the Jaguars assistant defensive backs coach, 49ers assistant defensive backs coach, 49ers safeties coach, 49ers DB coach, 49ers passing game coordinator and DB coach. And now Packers corner backs coach. He, of course, played in the league as well. I like that duo of Daniel Bullocks and Bobby Babbage. They lose two good ones in, in a downer and Anzli, but I think they did a great job in replacing them with Babbage and Daniel Bullocks. Your defensive quality control coaches are Jamel Lett and Will Smart. Smart was a pass rush specialist at Vanderbilt. He comes over now quality control

22:03coach with the Packers. Let is a carryover from 2025 for the Packers. Scott Fuchs to be careful with that one. It looks very different. It looks like a swear word, but Scott Fuchs, as the Packers said, rhymes with books, assistant offensive line coach from the, with the Titans in 2024 in 2025. He now takes over as a defensive assistant or defensive analyst. My guess is this is one of those coaches that has an offensive background that's going to be helping Jonathan Ganon, you know, sort of look for holes and tells and deficiencies and efficiencies and everything like that from an offensive mind standpoint and will help, you know, Ganon with sort of the game planning and self-scouting and things like that. That would be my guess. I don't know that for sure, but usually that's what Will Flour likes to do when he brings an offensive coach in and puts him on the defensive side of the ball. You're special to just to recap defensive coaches. Again, Jonathan Ganon, defensive coordinator, Vinso Gabasi, defensive line coach, run game coordinator,

23:03outside linebackers coach and assistant heads coach is to Marcus Covington, linebackers coaches, Sam Seifkis, secondary coach and passing game coordinators Bobby Babbage, cornerbacks coaches, Daniel Bullocks, defensive quality control coaches are Jamil Lett and Will Smart and defensive assistant is Scott Fuchs, rhymes with books. Special teams coordinators, of course, Cam A-Cord. We've talked about him in the past quite a bit. We did a whole episode on him, so we're not going to spend a lot of detail on that today. They do keep Cory Harky, who was third in command as the Packers special team assistant. They do keep him on staff. And then Jeff Coons, who was a defensive assistant for Green Bay in 2025. Now is another special team assistant under Cam A-Cord. The interesting thing here is Coons spent time from 2020 to 2024 as a special teams coach and inside linebackers coach for West Virginia. So he does have that special teams coordinator experience in the past with West Virginia. Those of your special teams coaches, Cam A-Cord, Cory Harky and Jeff Coons,

24:05the big thing to note there, they kept the three special teams coaches. That was new with Rich Basasia. They had two before that. They had three once Basasia came over. They stuck with three. I really like that. It just shows that they are willing to put some of the resources in to their special team staff. That is your Packers coaching staff for 2026. As mentioned, some new faces, some new names. Whether Matt LaFour wanted to or not, he got new ideas. He got fresh blood. And he has a lot of different coaches, specifically on the defensive side of the ball, but a couple on the offensive side of the ball and two-thirds of the special teams staff. This is at least new to the special team staff. Coons did spend time with the team in 2025 as well, but now moves over to the special team side. So a lot of new faces, in a lot of new places, and a coaching staff that they can be interesting to see what they do. We already know that they're probably going to a 3-4, at least that's assumed based on a lot of the tells so far. What other changes will there be?

25:07And just how good can this coaching staff be and can they get the most out of their players in 2026 and maybe help them take that step that we've kind of been waiting for for a lot of the younger players on this team? That's going to do it for me today. Thank you so much for joining me. Always appreciate you guys a ton. Shout out to our all-prone Hall of Fame members. P.J. Wayne, Brandon Palada, Boom-Hanel, Donald Lee, Lori Lorde, David McCluskey, Alex Wong, Peter Rataka, J. Zimmerman, B. Brown, Puerto Rican Packer, Dan Guestford, Chris Rager, Izzy Roberts, Ian Ewing, William Winkels, Sinckel, the Gable Storm, Pack Attack cast, Chris Weiss, Craig, John D. Metropolis, Hayden Rodomsky, Devon Lane, Alexander Newell, Richard Morales, Les Nino, Beast Bumblebee, Benjamin Sargent, Steve Bates, John Marclay Del Nimo, Donald Dacker, Damon Hartley, Zilch Zilurchson, Large Charles J. Conor, Will Glass, and Imperium Collectibles. See you guys tomorrow, but until next time, and as always, Go Pack-O.