When Jonathan Gannon was hired to be the Green Bay Packers’ defensive coordinator, there was an assumption that the Packers’ defense would primarily be a 3-4 front in base defense and the squad would call quarters coverage significantly more than a typical NFL team, since his defenses have called Cover 4 more than any individual NFL team since 2021. The big question was how many exotic personnel packages Gannon would bring from Arizona, which he leaned on due to their lack of talent throughout his tenure,
since the personnel in Green Bay is different.
On Family Night, we got our first bird’s-eye view of the Packers’ defense, which helped us answer that question (at least partially). Generally, Jeff Hafley, Green Bay’s previous defensive coordinator, almost exclusively played his base 4-3 defense and a Nickel package. Beyond Gannon’s expected 3-4 base defense and Nickel package, the Packers showed three other looks on Family Night.
Three-Safety Penny
Alright, this is the Packers’ often talked about three-safety defense. Yes, there are three safeties on the field when Green Bay plays their Nickel sets, since Javon Bullard plays in the slot, but this is a true three-safety look. Evan Williams and Javon Bullard are 10 yards off the ball here, and Xavier McKinney is so deep in the middle of the field that he doesn’t even appear on the screen.
On this play, the Packers are playing a “Penny” front, which is essentially the same as a 3-4 defense on the line of scrimmage, with three interior defensive linemen jamming up the front. Penny is used to stop opposing offenses’ run games while allowing for five defensive backs to be on the field, like in a Nickel package.
The trade-off here is that most teams usually put an off-ball linebacker on the bench to get a slot defender (compared to a 3-4 defense), but the Packers actually lost a “true” edge defender to bring on an extra safety when they played Penny on Family Night. Instead of Edgerrin Cooper going to the bench, which is what most teams would have done with their Will linebacker in Penny looks, they played Cooper on the edge (at the top of the screen) and swapped out an edge rusher for Javon Bullard.
Why are the Packers playing Cooper on the edge in these packages? Well, one way to hurt Penny defenses is by spreading them out. Either the defense has to declare that they’ll be rushing five by keeping the line of scrimmage together (teams usually throw quick game passes against this) or they have to detach an edge rusher into the slot (an obvious matchup that offenses want to take advantage of) if they’re showing a four-man rush.
So instead of an edge rusher breaking out into the slot, it was Cooper who was separated from the offensive formation when the defense got that spread look on Family Night. Cooper is probably a better matchup in the slot than Preston Smith, the player that offenses picked on the last time Green Bay leaned heavily into the Penny formation under Joe Barry.
You’re probably wondering: “Wait, we’re giving up the edge on this play?” The answer is yes, and it’s very common in college football right now (especially among programs that major in quarters systems).
College coaches have learned a technique that they generally call Jimmy/Pony that allows linemen to slow-play the run game and allow for the ball to bounce outside slowly in a way that gets defenders who line up at depth to make plays in the alley. The video above is a clinic that former Alabama coach Karl Scott did, where he explains this technique. Scott is now the defensive backs coach/passing game coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks, who just won a Super Bowl with a quarters-based defense.
My question moving forward for this package is whether or not the Packers’ pass-rush of three interior linemen and one true edge rusher is good enough to get home in this package when they’re spread out and rushing four, especially if that lone edge rusher isn’t Micah Parsons, but we probably won’t get an answer there until the regular season. Worth noting: Green Bay called this package on mixed downs, as both of the screenshots above came from second-and-medium looks.
Here’s an overhead look of a Penny front, which Cooper would be playing the “W” for in this set:
Cheetah Package
This is your typical Nickel look, with the Packers playing a four-man front on the line of scrimmage and having a slot defender (Bullard) on the field. The one curveball here is that on obvious passing downs, Green Bay also plays an extra edge defender on the interior — in this case Lukas Van Ness on the side of the center — in place of a 300-plus-pounder.
Jeff Hafley had this package too, which is how you got Micah Parsons standing up and roaming near the ball pre-snap on third downs. They called this the “Cheetah” package under Hafley. So far, edge defenders kicking into the interior have come out of three-point stances for Gannon, so maybe that’ll be a difference in 2026.
For what it’s worth, it seems like the Packers prefer to use interior defensive linemen Karl Brooks and Warren Brinson on passing downs (remember that Devonte Wyatt and Javon Hargrave were both non-participants on Family Night) and edge rushers Brenton Cox Jr. and Collin Oliver on the outside in these situations. Barryn Sorrell was mostly a run-down edge defender (and did well on Family Night in that role), with Van Ness and Dani Dennis-Sutton being the top “kick inside” candidates on third downs.
Mug Front
The final “exotic” front the Packers showed was a Mug front, another tool that Hafley also used in the past. This is another Nickel personnel formation, with the difference from true Nickel being that the typical off-ball linebackers are walked up to the line of scrimmage, forcing opposing offenses to allocate at least one non-offensive lineman to help chip the front; otherwise, an all-out blitz (of six line of scrimmage defenders) would leave a free man screaming to the quarterback.
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At minimum, Green Bay has five defensive looks installed:
- Base 3-4
- Nickel
- Normal Nickel
- Cheetah Package
- Mug Nickel
- 3-Safety Penny
While the Nickel formations are similar to what Hafley did with the Packers, expect a lot more “Odd” fronts (3-4 base, 3-Safety Penny) in Green Bay under Gannon this year, as Hafley generally only played an Odd-numbered front on the line of scrimmage when the team played its 4-3 Under. In 4-3 Under looks, Hafley’s defense would walk down Sam linebacker Isaiah McDuffie to the line of scrimmage. So far, we’ve seen no three-linebacker (not outside linebackers, who are edge rushers) looks under Gannon, as the Packers appear to be majoring in two-linebacker sets in 2026.
We also didn’t get any Dime (double slot, one linebacker) looks on Family Night, which was a staple for Gannon in Arizona. For perspective, the Cardinals ran 176 snaps of Dime last year (5th most in the NFL), while Green Bay ran just 2 (29th in the NFL). Both of those snaps came in end-of-half situations for the 2025 Packers. It doesn’t seem like that will be a big part of Gannon’s game plan in Green Bay. He at least didn’t show that card on Family Night.
