The Green Bay Packers aren’t done making changes to their defensive coaching staff. Head coach Matt LaFleur and new defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon are reportedly adding another experienced position coach to the organization, one who has some indirect ties to some of his new coworkers.
According to CBS Sports’ Matt Zenitz, the Packers are hiring Daniel Bullocks, who has spent the last nine years on the staff of the San Francisco 49ers. Kyle Shanahan hired Bullocks as a member of his first coaching
staff in San Francisco back in 2017 and Bullocks has held a number of different roles since, most recently serving as defensive backs coach and defensive passing game coordinator for the last three seasons.
Green Bay saw their own previous defensive passing game coordinator leave in recent days, as Derrick Ansley moved on to a similar role with the Dallas Cowboys. However, the Packers reportedly already have another individual coming on board who will hold those titles: Bobby Babich, the former Buffalo Bills defensive coordinator. This raises the question of what role and specific title Bullocks will have in Green Bay.
One possibility is that the Packers could split up responsibilities in the secondary by position. Bullocks was the 49ers’ safeties coach from 2019 to 2022 before taking on his most recent title, and that was also his position during his playing career in the 2000s. That suggests that he could end up focusing on that position group while Babich works more closely with the cornerbacks.
Not long ago, Bullocks was considered to be a rising candidate in the coaching world. He interviewed with the 49ers for their vacant defensive coordinator position in 2024, a job that eventually went to Nick Sorensen. He lasted one year in that role before being fired, and Robert Saleh took over the job in 2025.
Bullocks’ coaching career followed a four-year career as an NFL safety. After playing college ball at Nebraska, he was a 2nd-round draft pick by the Detroit Lions in 2006. Bullocks started 7 games as a rookie, missed the 2017 season with an injury, then started full-time for the 2008 Lions, who went 0-16. He was injured again in 2009 and did not play again, moving into coaching in college in the early 2010s. His first NFL job came in 2016, when he joined the Jacksonville Jaguars as their assistant DBs coach, then he moved to the same position with the 49ers in 2017 and had been with that organization continuously since.
