{"id":720102,"date":"2026-01-31T22:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T22:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/720102\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T22:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T22:48:15","slug":"packers-db-coach-leaves-for-the-dallas-cowboys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/720102\/","title":{"rendered":"Packers DB coach leaves for the Dallas Cowboys"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dallas Cowboys are going to hire former Green Bay Packers pass game coordinator Derrick Ansley, according to CBS Sports\u2019 Matt Zenitz<\/a>. This shouldn\u2019t be too big a surprise, since Ansley has an extensive history with the quarters system from his time with Alabama, Tennessee and the Los Angeles Chargers. The Cowboys hired their new defensive coordinator, Christian Parker, from the Philadelphia Eagles, who run a quarters-based system. Parker signed with the Cowboys<\/a>, who interviewed with the Packers<\/a>, a day before Green Bay had new defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon in for his interview. Apparently, the Cowboys chose Parker over Gannon, who also interviewed for that job, because of his communication with players<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Packers will also be running a quarters system under Gannon<\/a>, so it was a little odd that Ansley wasn\u2019t retained by the team. Interestingly, Green Bay head coach Matt LaFleur only reportedly interviewed four outside candidates for the job, following Jeff Hafley\u2019s hire as the Miami Dolphins\u2019 head coach, before hiring Gannon got the gig. (Yes, the Hafley interview didn\u2019t come out in 2024 until Hafley was already hired by Green Bay, but he was a sitting college football head coach. That\u2019s about the one scenario where an agent wouldn\u2019t want to leak that his\/her client received an NFL defensive coordinator interview.) Per ESPN\u2019s Rob Demovsky<\/a>, though, LaFleur did interview all four of his defensive assistants for the job, too.<\/p>\n

With Ansley leaving for the Cowboys, three of those four assistants are now gone. Linebackers coach Sean Duggan, who came into the league with Hafley after a stint with him at Boston College, and defensive backs coach Ryan Downard, who has been in Green Bay for eight seasons, joined the Dolphins.<\/p>\n

On paper, assistant coaches can only move gigs if they were fired (there\u2019s been no reporting suggesting any of these coaches were fired), if they leave for a defensive coordinator promotion (Ansley and Downard did not become defensive coordinators but Duggan\u2019s title in Miami has yet to be announced), if their contracts expired (there has been no reporting that these coaches were free agents) or if the team simply allows them to leave for a lateral gig. My theory is that we\u2019re seeing the last option play out.<\/p>\n

Letting assistants leave means that the Packers don\u2019t have to use buyout money (the industry standard is for coaching contracts to be guaranteed in the NFL) to get Gannon a fresh new staff. So far, the only 2025 defensive assistant who doesn\u2019t have a new job in 2026 is Green Bay defensive line coach\/run game coordinator DeMarcus Covington, but we haven\u2019t heard whether he will 100 percent be back under Gannon, either.<\/p>\n

For perspective, if Covington does leave, it will be the first time a new defensive coordinator in Green Bay gets an entire staff of his own in decades. Hafley, Joe Barry, Mike Pettine and Dom Capers all had holdover assistants from the previous staff.<\/p>\n

It sure looks like the Packers wanted a clean break on defense under Gannon, and their assistants (sans maybe Covington) were willing to play ball.<\/p>\n

So far, Green Bay has hired Sam Siefkes<\/a>, who coached linebackers under Gannon from 2023 to 2024 and comes from the same Mike Zimmer background as Gannon<\/a>, to coach linebackers. They\u2019ve also hired Bobby Babich<\/a>, whom LaFleur interviewed for defensive coordinator in 2024<\/a> and is a member of QB Collective<\/a>, to coach defensive backs.<\/p>\n

In Philadelphia, Gannon\u2019s 4-3 defense had just three on-field coaches, one for each level of the defense. In Arizona, when Gannon was the head coach, his 3-4 defense had five total on-field coaches (they split line of scrimmage duties between a defensive line coach and an outside linebackers coach, and also had two coaches for the secondary). So, depending on whether or not Covington comes back, the staff could be set, or the Packers could look to hire three more coaches for 2026 (a potential Covington replacement, another coach on the line of scrimmage and another defensive backs coach).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Cowboys are going to hire former Green Bay Packers pass game coordinator Derrick Ansley, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2072],"tags":[7,41,345,97481,2702,2514,2513,6,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-720102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-green-bay-packers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-green-bay","10":"tag-green-bay-packers","11":"tag-green-bay-packers-coaching-staff","12":"tag-green-bay-packers-news","13":"tag-greenbay","14":"tag-greenbaypackers","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-packers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115992153838375196","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}