GREEN BAY \u2014 Zayne Anderson was headed for the exit. He\u2019d cleaned out his locker, packed his bags and said his goodbyes.<\/p>\n
What Anderson did not know as he left the Green Bay Packers locker room after the team’s season-ending playoff loss to the Chicago Bears a few days earlier was that he needed to bid farewell to the coach he credits with making him the player he\u2019s become \u2014 veteran special-teams coordinator and assistant head coach Rich Bisaccia, who announced Tuesday night that he\u2019d decided to \u201cstep down\u201d from both roles.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter taking some time to reflect over the last few weeks, I have made the decision to step down as the assistant head coach and special-teams coordinator of the Green Bay Packers,\u201d Bisaccia said in a statement released by the team. \u201cI am incredibly grateful to [head coach] Matt LaFleur, [general manager] Brian Gutekunst, [team president\/CEO] Ed Policy and [retired president\/CEO] Mark Murphy for their unwavering trust and support throughout my time in Green Bay.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am also thankful to the players for their consistent work and relentless effort to improve every single day. I would like to thank everyone in the organization for their dedication and commitment. The people in this building make it a special place to work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to also thank our fans and the people throughout the Green Bay community for their passion and love for this team. Coaching for the Green Bay Packers was truly an honor, and I will always be grateful for my time here. I look forward to whatever is next for me and my family, and I wish nothing but the best for everyone in the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Tuesday night\u2019s announcement, LaFleur said the organization was \u201cdisappointed to lose a person and coach as valuable as Rich\u201d but that the club would \u201crespect his decision,\u201d wishing him and his family well. There was no indication that Bisaccia had been pushed into the decision or pressured to resign.<\/p>\n
Bisaccia’s choice of words in his statement also made it clear that this was not a retirement.<\/p>\n
\u201cRich was a tremendous resource to me and our entire coaching staff who had a profound impact on our players and our culture throughout the building,\u201d LaFleur said in his statement. \u201cWe can\u2019t thank him enough for his contributions to our team over the last four years.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Anderson, one of several players on the roster whose primary contributions came on special teams, the news went beyond disappointing.<\/p>\n
Having finished the 2025 season on injured reserve with a significant ankle injury, Anderson had been reduced to being a spectator for the team\u2019s playoff loss to the Chicago Bears.<\/p>\n
From on the field and on the sideline, Anderson had seen firsthand the ups and downs the Packers\u2019 special-teams units had endured throughout the year, and he also knew that in the NFL, such inconsistency can cost people their jobs \u2014 even accomplished coordinators like the 65-year-old Bisaccia.<\/p>\n
But he couldn\u2019t have seen Tuesday\u2019s news coming, 38 days after that devastating loss to the Bears.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there’s uncertainty in this business for everybody,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cEveryone has a job to do, and everybody has uncertainty \u2014 players, coaches, administrative staff. All I can say is, I love that guy, man. And he’s made me a better player.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s raised my standards in terms of how I play the game. He’s always going to be the guy to you guys [in the media] that is always going to take the blame. That just shows the guy he is. He’s not one to point fingers. He takes responsibility for everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, that’s what you want in a coach. But as a player, when you see that, it hurts \u2014 because sometimes it’s the player that did make that mistake, and it’s a reflection of him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just, I love that guy, man. He’s brought a culture here that not a lot of people on the outside may see, but it’s changed the culture inside. I can only speak from my own experience, but he’s made me a better player. And I think he\u2019s a hell of a coach.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why LaFleur hired Bisaccia in 2022, after three years of poor special-teams play under coordinators Sean Mennenga and Maurice Drayton that bottomed out in an NFC divisional playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers in which the No. 1-seeded Packers had a punt blocked for a touchdown and had only 10 men on the field for the Niners\u2019 game-winning field goal.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Bisaccia\u2019s departure comes after a season in which the Packers’ special teams saw punter Daniel Whelan emerge as one of the NFL\u2019s best and the coverage units show meaningful improvement. But the team’s so-called “we-fense” also endured a myriad of issues:<\/p>\n
The field-goal protection unit allowed a pair of Brandon McManus kicks to be blocked \u2014 a late field-goal attempt in a Week 3 loss at Cleveland, and an extra point in a Week 4 tie at Dallas.<\/p>\n
With wide receiver Jayden Reed sidelined with a Week 2 broken collarbone and fractured foot, and two-time All-Pro kick returner Keisean Nixon having become the team\u2019s No. 1 cornerback and no longer handling kickoff returns, the Packers struggled to find viable returners. They tried first-round pick Matthew Golden as the punt returner (despite Golden having never returned punts at any level) and third-round pick Savion Williams as the kickoff returner (despite only having returned 14 kickoffs during his five-year college career at TCU, and all of them as a freshman in 2020). Neither player succeeded.<\/p>\n
McManus, who downplayed a midseason quadriceps injury to his kicking leg and missed time because of it, finished the season having missed eight kicks in addition to the two blocks \u2014 including a pair of field-goal attempts and an extra point in the season-ending playoff loss to the Bears.<\/p>\n
In a late regular-season loss to the Bears that essentially ruined the Packers’ hopes of winning the NFC North, wide receiver Romeo Doubs couldn’t corral a late onside kick that allowed the Bears to force overtime and subsequently win the game. Doubs also was shaky as the punt returner after the Golden experiment.<\/p>\n
The Packers special-teams units had 22 penalties enforced against them, tied for 10th-most in the NFL.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019d be easy to come in here and cite some of the things that we’ve done really well. I just don’t live in that world,\u201d Bisaccia said in October during one his weekly press conferences with reporters. \u201cIt’s incumbent on me, incumbent on us, to be critical of the other parts that we need to get better at. It’s not really all gloom and doom. Nothing’s going to happen to kill my spirit or attitude. I know we have some issues that we have to correct, but we’re still going to always be a work in progress. Special teams is one play, and that one play [is] magnified.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don’t get those 72 or 68 plays. We’re getting anywhere from 23 to 33 plays right now in the game, and if you have one big gaffe or two that affect the game, and it just gets magnified.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m certainly self-confident enough to be self-critical.\u201d<\/p>\n
The timing of Bisaccia\u2019s decision is problematic for the Packers, who were closing in on having their full coaching staff set after an offseason filled with changes, triggered by defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley leaving to become the Miami Dolphins\u2019 new head coach and taking several defensive assistants with him.<\/p>\n
The Packers also lost quarterbacks coach Sean Mannion, who left to become the Philadelphia Eagles\u2019 offensive coordinator, and special-teams assistant Byron Storer, Bisaccia\u2019s longtime lieutenant who was named the Cleveland Browns\u2019 special-teams coordinator.<\/p>\n
Finding a replacement for Bisaccia means locating candidates that haven\u2019t already signed on with new staffs. Ten teams hired new head coaches during this cycle, leading to extensive assistant coach movement.<\/p>\n
Less than two week ago, Gutekunst gave no indication whatsoever in his after-the-season Q&A session with reporters at Lambeau Field that Bisaccia was contemplating stepping down.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Rich brings to our culture, this football team, he\u2019s a very impactful coach around here,\u201d Gutekunst said. \u201cCertainly, I thought we\u2019ve been better on teams the last few years than we\u2019ve been in a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur cover units have been better. We\u2019ve got one of the best punters in the National Football League [and] got an excellent snapper. Brandon was excellent last year. This year, he worked through some things injury-wise and then had a bad playoff game. That was kind of how that ended.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got a lot of faith in Rich and his staff, what they do around here, not only the X\u2019s and O\u2019s, what they bring to the field, but what they bring to this place culturally is really important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anderson, meanwhile, wasn\u2019t the only one disappointed by Bisaccia\u2019s departure. Nixon, who played for Bisaccia while Bisaccia was the special-teams coordinator and interim head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, has never played an NFL season without Bisaccia being on his team\u2019s coaching staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been with Rich my whole career,\u201d Nixon said after the season. \u201cSo I don\u2019t even know what a season would be like without him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Rich is a perfect guy for any job, not just here. We\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GREEN BAY \u2014 Zayne Anderson was headed for the exit. He\u2019d cleaned out his locker, packed his bags…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2072],"tags":[31928,7,41,345,2514,2513,3031,6,428,15667,2948,41657,1734],"class_list":{"0":"post-762444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-green-bay-packers","8":"tag-coaching-change","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-green-bay","11":"tag-green-bay-packers","12":"tag-greenbay","13":"tag-greenbaypackers","14":"tag-matt-lafleur","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-packers","17":"tag-rich-bisaccia","18":"tag-special-teams","19":"tag-team-culture","20":"tag-zayne-anderson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116097527577520819","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762444","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=762444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}