The Green Bay Packers continue to see vacancies pop up on their defensive coaching staff this week, but Matt LaFleur and Jonathan Gannon are hard at work filling them as they appear. One day after reportedly hiring Bobby Babich to coach the defensive backs, Green Bay has found its linebackers coach on Thursday to fill the spot that Sean Duggan held a year ago.
The new linebackers coach is Sam Siefkes, with the news first reported by Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports. The 34-year-old Siefkes knows the state
of Wisconsin very well: he is a native of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin and he has experience at three different football programs within the University of Wisconsin system. He played defensive back and was a student assistant at UW-La Crosse, he spent a year as a graduate assistant for the Wisconsin Badgers under defensive coordinator Dave Aranda, and he was the defensive coordinator for UW-Platteville for two years.
That experience all came last decade, however, and he has been coaching in the NFL for the last few years, starting with the Minnesota Vikings in 2021. Notably, Siefkes has a history with Gannon, serving as his linebackers coach with the Arizona Cardinals in 2023 and 2024. He then spent a year as the defensive coordinator at Virginia Tech in 2025 and is now returning to the NFL to rejoin Gannon once again.
In Arizona, Siefkes helped lead an inside linebacker group that included names like Kyzir White, Mack Wilson, Josh Woods, and former Packer Krys Barnes, among others. In 2024, White recorded 137 tackles as Arizona’s defense improved drastically overall from the prior year, moving from 31st in the NFL in points allowed to 15th.
One remaining question about Siefkes’ duties involves what type of scheme the Packers plan to run under Gannon. If the team moves back to a 3-4 alignment, expect them to hire another coach with outside linebacker duties, with Siefkes focused on the off-ball linebackers. If they stay in a 4-3, they may not need to hire another position coach should Demarcus Covington stick around as defensive line coach. In either case, the Packers likely will not need to make another hire to replace departing pass game coordinator Derrick Ansley after the addition of Babich, with his titles reportedly covering both DBs coach and pass game coordinator.
