The Green Bay Packers are officially in the market for a new defense coordinator. On Friday, the Packers apparently decided to divorce Mike Pettine, their coordinator for the past three seasons. Pettine coached the 2020 season in the final year of his contract, which was a rare factor in the NFL, and the Packers chose not to renew his contract.
The news comes first from Tom Pelissero of NFL.com, which confirms that the Packers will not renew Pettine’s contract. The Packers confirmed Pettine’s departure, as well as the dismissal of Shawn Mennenga, in a press release late Friday afternoon.
While the Packers attack in 2020 took an important step forward to become the league in several ways, the defense remained a mediocre unit, finishing ninth in yards and allowing 13th in points, but only 17th in DVOA. Once a turnover machine, the Packers will finish 25th in the NFL in 2020 with just 18 takeaways.
The defense showed tangible signs of improvement in the latter part of the 2020 season after a rough start. After the team scored the expected points in each of the team’s first eight games, the defense delivered four positive performances in the second half and had only one game that was worse than negative points versus four in the first half. However, the performance in the NFC Championship game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was the last straw, as Matt LaFleur, head coach, decided to make a change.
In that game, the Packers allowed 31 points, and their third NFC Championship event allowed more than 30. Pettine’s team conceded 37 to the San Francisco 49ers a year ago. Sunday against the Buccaneers, those were failures of third and long time – the Bucs had 9 of 14 third attempts to shut down, including five conversions of seven yards or more, and an unexplained coverage on a de facto Hail Mary attempt to the end of the first half which was ultimately the main reasons for his dismissal.
Now, in the 2021 off-season, the Packers will begin replacing a coordinator for the second time in Matt LaFleur’s head coach, both of whom will take place in the off-season. LaFleur fired Shawn Mennenga, special teams coordinator, on Wednesday and replaced him with Maurice Drayton, assistant coach for special teams, as coordinator. Pettine was originally appointed before the 2018 season by Mike McCarthy and the Packers chose to retain him after appointing LaFleur as McCarthy’s replacement.
Green Bay may have internal candidates, but will likely also throw a wide net if they are looking for Pettine’s replacement.