GREEN BAY — While we don’t know whether there is any more to the story of Rich Bisaccia’s decision to step down as the Green Bay Packers’ special-teams coordinator and assistant head coach, this much we can say for certain: 

The timing was less than ideal.

Bisaccia’s announcement on Tuesday evening came 38 days after the Packers’ 31-27 season-ending NFC first-round playoff loss to the archrival Chicago Bears at Soldier field, and 13 days after general manager Brian Gutekunst spoke at length during his after-the-season Q&A session with reporters about Bisaccia’s importance to the team’s culture and the improvement the special-teams units had shown during Bisaccia’s four-year tenure.

Bisaccia’s decision to step down came one week after the Cleveland Browns hired Byron Storer, Bisaccia’s longtime No. 1 assistant with the Packers (and the Las Vegas Raiders before that) as their new special-teams coordinator. Storer would have been the obvious in-house replacement for Bisaccia had the Packers wanted to keep the core principles of Bisaccia’s systems intact despite his departure.

With Storer out of the mix, the only special-teams assistant still remaining on the Packers’ staff is quality control assistant Cory Harkey. It’s hard to imagine him being ready for a leap to coordinator, meaning head coach Matt LaFleur, who has full authority over his coaching staff, will have to find Bisaccia’s replacement from a watered-down pool of candidates after 11 teams hired new special-teams coordinators already this offseason.

Among the special-teams coordinators to join new teams are Chris Horton of the New York Giants, Chris Tabor of the Miami Dolphins, Danny Crossman of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Danny Smith of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Joe DeCamill9s of the Las Vegas Raiders.

What LaFleur might be looking for in his fourth special-teams coordinator in his eight seasons in Green Bay is hard to say. But here is a list of five potential candidates who might pique his interest:

• Tom McMahon, ex-Las Vegas Raiders special-teams coordinator — McMahon actually replaced Bisaccia in Vegas after Bisaccia came to Green Bay following his interim head-coaching run in 2021. The Raiders fired him at midseason following a loss to the Denver Broncos — a loss that was fueled in part by a blocked punt the Raiders allowed. Before his stint with the Raiders, McMahon ran the special teams for the St. Louis Rams, Kansas City Chiefs, Indianapolis Colts and the Broncos.

• Thomas McGaughey, ex-Tampa Bay Buccaneers special-teams coordinator — McGaughey spent the last two seasons as the Bucs’ special-teams coordinator but was fired in January. Before that, he coordinated special-teams units for the New York Jets, San Francisco 49ers, Carolina Panthers and New York Jets.

• Chase Blackburn, Atlanta Falcons assistant special teams coach —  Blackburn was fired by the Los Angeles Rams in December — becoming the first assistant coach Rams head coach Sean McVay has ever fired in-season — after a late-season loss to the eventual Super Bowl LX-champion Seattle Seahawks in which the Rams gave up a 58-yard Rashid Shaheed punt return for a touchdown and Rams kicker Harrison Mevis missed a potential game-winning field goal late in the fourth quarter. Blackburn, who played 10 seasons in the NFL as a linebacker, coordinated the Panthers’ special teams for three seasons and the Rams’ units for three years and joined new Falcons coach Kevin Stefanski’s staff last month.

• Marquice Williams, ex-Falcons special-teams coordinator — Williams spent the last five seasons in charge of the as the Falcons’ special teams but was let go after the Falcons moved on from head coach Raheem Morris, one of LaFleur’s closest friends in coaching. He broke into NFL coaching with the Bears in 2013 as part of the Bill Walsh NFL diversity coaching fellowship program and got his first full-time position as the San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers’ assistant special-teams coach in 2016.

• Ben Kotwica, Baltimore Ravens senior special-teams assistant — Kotwica served as the Rams’ interim special-teams coordinator after Blackburn’s firing and joined the Ravens staff as an experienced assistant to their new coordinator Anthony Levine, a former Packers player who is entering his first season as a coordinator. Kotwica, a linebacker and team captain for Army who became a helicopter pilot and served in the Iraq War, served as a special-teams coordinator for the Jets, Washington Redskins, Falcons and Broncos.

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