GREEN BAY − Five Green Bay Packers defensive assistant coaches conducted press conferences May 5, their first sessions with the media this offseason. Following are highlights:
Bobby Babich interviewed for Packers defensive coordinator job
Bobby Babich, the new secondary/pass game coordinator, interviewed with coach Matt LaFleur for the Packers’ defensive coordinator position that went to Jonathan Gannon in late January.
Babich was Buffalo’s defensive coordinator the past two seasons. Babich is one of three new assistants Gannon brought in to run his defense. The two had never worked together but had talked at the NFL scouting combine, where Babich and Nick Rallis, who was Gannon’s defensive coordinator in Arizona, get together every year to talk defense.
One year, Gannon joined the meetup.
“We got to know each other there, probably spent an hour, two hours talking defensive football,” Babich said. “That’s when we first officially met and spent time together.”
Babich is the son of longtime football coach Bob Babich, who coached in college from 1984 through 2002, including two years as Wisconsin’s offensive line coach (1988-89) and as head coach at North Dakota State (1997-2002). Bob Babich was a defensive assistant in the NFL from 2003 through 2021, including as the Chicago Bears’ defensive coordinator from 2007-09.
Bobby Babich also coached defensive backs and linebackers with the Bills before becoming their defensive coordinator. He’ll be leading a Packers pass defense that last season intercepted only seven passes, which ranked No. 28 in the league.
“There’s so much that goes into it, I could sit up here and give a 50-minute dissertation about it,” Babich said of turnovers. “You get what you emphasize. You’ve got to be opportunistic, and one of the things I tell the guys all the time, we don’t need to chase plays, we need to put ourselves in position to make plays.
“When that ball shows up, you better make sure you’ve repetitioned that so much that you’ve been in that position that you’ve visualized it, you’ve trained it, you’ve done all of that. There’s a lot that goes into it.”
New linebackers coach Sam Siefkes grew up in Wisconsin
New linebackers coach Sam Siefkes worked for Gannon with the Cardinals and has deep roots in Wisconsin.
Siefkes is from Oconomowoc and played defensive back for a season at UW-La Crosse before becoming a student coach there. He also was a grad assistant at Wisconsin for one season (2015).
“I grew up watching obviously Green Bay, that was what we did every Sunday,” Siefkes said. “I don’t take (working for the Packers) lightly. If anything it’s helping me work even harder, which I didn’t know that was possible prior to getting here. I don’t take it lightly just to put it pretty bluntly.”
Siefkes was Gannon’s linebackers coach with the Cardinals in 2023 and ‘24. He was Virginia Tech’s defensive coordinator last season but was let go when the school hired former Penn State coach James Franklin to take over the program in the offseason.
Siefkes has the most experience with Gannon of anyone on staff for helping implement Gannon’s defense.
Gannon likes to say he doesn’t have a scheme, and in his press conference May 4 said he builds his playbook once he starts working with his defensive players. But he mostly ran a 3-4-oriented scheme with Arizona and as Philadelphia’s defensive coordinator before that.
“Scheme to (Gannon), to us, does not matter,” Siefkes said. “We’re going to do whatever we feel like is the best thing for the team and helps give us the best chance to win the football game. That’s the most important thing.
“You got through the beginning stages, or the infant stages, of coming in as a new defense, a new position coach, a new coordinator, you want to figure out how those pieces can fit together and how we can put each other in best position to make plays and call the right things.”
DeMarcus Covington takes over edge rushers
DeMarcus Covington moved from defensive line coach last season to outside linebackers coach this year, along with retaining his role as run game coordinator and adding assistant head coach to his title.
With Gannon essentially running a 3-4-based scheme, outside linebackers are edge defenders. Among the players at Covington’s position is Micah Parsons, who is about five months into recovery from ACL surgery.
“Me and Micah, we’ve got a great relationship,” Covington said. “We talk often. All he’s trying to do is get healthy and get back to being Micah Parsons.”
Covington had never worked for Gannon though he interviewed with him twice, including for the Cardinals’ defensive coordinator job in 2023.
New cornerbacks coach talks tackling
New cornerbacks coach Daniel Bullocks first listed tackling, not pass coverage, among the biggest things he’ll be looking for in the preseason as the Packers determine their playing rotation at cornerback.
The Packers return Keisean Nixon (17 starts) and Carrington Valentine (11) as possible starters at outside cornerback, though they also signed free agent Benjamin St-Juste and used a second-round pick on cornerback Brandon Cisse, as well as a sixth-rounder on cornerback Domani Jackson.
Bullocks is a former NFL safety who started 22 games for Detroit from 2006-09.
“The big thing that’s going to show up in camp that you can’t see right now is tackling,” Bullocks said. “That’s the thing you’re going to see in the preseason (games) when the pads come on, you’re gonna strike that ball carrier and run through him. That’s the biggest thing.”
Bullocks was a defensive assistant with the 49ers for the previous 10 years. In Super Bowl LVIII he sustained a torn Achilles tendon in the third quarter but coached the rest of the game.
“I landed on the strength coach’s leg and it snapped,” Bullocks said. “I thought it was just a high ankle sprain, they tried to get me a boot, but it’s the Super Bowl, you’re (on) the biggest stage, so I’m not really thinking about it, all I’m thinking about is the next play, trying to coach right then in the moment. I didn’t realize I tore my Achilles until right after the game when the confetti came down and I realized I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t walk back to the locker room.”
Vince Oghobaase gets promotion
Vince Oghobaase became a full-fledged position coach for the first time in his NFL coaching career this offseason after being the Packers’ assistant defensive line coach the past two years.
Former defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley brought Oghobaase with him from Boston College to the Packers in 2024. LaFleur and Gannon promoted him this offseason though he’d never worked with Gannon.
“One of the biggest things in football today is being adaptable, adjustable to different situations, different schemes, different techniques,” Oghobaase said of having to learn a new coordinator’s defense. “But at the end of the day it’s all ball.”
This article originally appeared on Packers News: Bobby Babich looking for uptick in turnovers in Packers secondary
Reporting by Pete Dougherty, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Packers News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
