Packers defensive coordinator opening ranked the best in the NFL by ESPN

ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler and Ben Solak ranked the best coordinator openings in the league this offseason, with five official openings on the offensive side and eight official openings on the defensive side. Obviously, more teams will get involved in the coordinator market later this offseason, as more head coaching decisions will be made that will result in additional job openings.

At the tippy top of the defensive coordinator rankings was the Green Bay Packers’ opening. Below are their DC rankings:

1. Green Bay Packers
2. San Francisco 49ers
3. Los Angeles Chargers
4. New York Giants

The other openings in the league, which didn’t make the top four, are the Baltimore Ravens, Miami Dolphins, Tennessee Titans and Washington Commanders. You can read our defensive coordinator tracker, which examines all interview requests made by Green Bay and non-Green Bay teams, to see who is being drawn to which jobs.

This is Solak’s justification for why the Packers are the top defensive gig on the market:

Coaching edge rusher Micah Parsons sure sounds pretty cool. Other young, secured talent, such as linebacker Edgerrin Cooper, cornerback Xavier McKinney and safety Evan Williams, offer a great base from which a clever defensive coach could scheme up a successful unit. That’s something Jeff Hafley, the outgoing DC and current Dolphins head coach, did well in multiple seasons. The Packers need more depth at cornerback and defensive tackle, but they have been willing to spend to sign free agents recently.

I’m not sure how much the Packers are going to be spending in free agency, even with Brian Gutekunst being more willing to use free agency than Ted Thompson. Their cap situation is going to make it very hard for the team to make a big splash in 2026. 2027, honestly, is more likely to be the year that the Packers make their last push before the roster decay starts, depending on how many extensions they ink this offseason.

I think nose tackle is their biggest need going into the offseason, an issue that will probably need to be addressed on Day 2 of the draft, since Green Bay is without its first-round pick this year (and next year) due to the Micah Parsons trade. Trading away Kenny Clark put the team in a pickle, considering that starting-caliber nose tackles just don’t become available in the fall.

Cornerback…is interesting. The team will probably, at minimum, try to get Nate Hobbs to push for a starting role in 2026 in a camp battle with Carrington Valentine, still on a cheap contract that the team would like to keep (unless they trade him). Keisean Nixon is also putting up relatively average numbers at cornerback over the last two years, while only making $5 million in cash in 2026. For reference, the market for second-contract (really the only types of FAs the Packers try to sign) average cornerback starters jumped to around $18 million per year last free agency cycle. Again, Nixon is another deal that the team will probably try to keep (barring a trade) next season.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Packers took a cornerback on Day 2, more likely in the third round than the second round (just because nose tackle is the squeekier wheel and there should be more meat on the bone there in the second than the cornerback position), with the intent being that the corner would push for more opportunities in 2027 than he’d receive in 2026, as Nixon and Valentine’s deals will be expiring next offseason and it would be much easier to move off Hobbs then than in 2026.

That’s just how I see it.

As far as who could get the job in Green Bay, here’s what Fowler said:

Former Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon is one of the strongest coordinator options left and is firmly in the mix in Green Bay, though others are looking at him. Packers coach Matt LaFleur has strong ties to former Falcons coach Raheem Morris, who will have coordinator options if he doesn’t get the Arizona head coaching job. Denver defensive pass-game coordinator Jim Leonhard is a name to watch, too. He played and coached at Wisconsin, and he was up for this job in 2021.

These all make sense. It’s still pretty early on in the Packers’ process, with the Dallas Cowboys and New York Jets both starting their aggressive searches much earlier, so I wouldn’t expect the team to make a decision today or anything. For what it’s worth, Green Bay didn’t hire Hafley until January 31st last time around.