South Florida is going to have a lot of former Green Bay Packers moving forward. Not only have the Miami Dolphins taken Jon-Eric Sullivan (general manager), Jeff Hafley (head coach), Ryan Downard (pass game coordinator) and Venzell Boulware (pro scout) from the team, but Miami will also get linebackers coach Sean Duggan in the divorce, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Tom Silverstein.
This should be no surprise, as Duggan joined the Packers from Hafley’s Boston College staff. In 2024, Duggan was the team’s assistant linebackers coach, working under Anthony Campanile, now the Jacksonville Jaguars’ defensive coordinator. When Campanile left Green Bay, Duggan was internally promoted to be the team’s linebackers coach for the 2025 season.
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It’s uncertain what Duggan’s role will be for Hafley, but unless he was named as the defensive coordinator by Miami, then the Packers could have blocked this move. Duggan was Hafley’s co-defensive coordinator in their final season together at Boston College (2023). Before then, Hafley’s defensive coordinator was Tem Lukabu (2020-2022), who is currently the Jaguars’ linebackers coach on Campanile’s staff.
Duggan was just one of two coaches from Boston College that Hafley brought with him. The other is assistant defensive line coach Vince Oghobaase, who was BC’s defensive line coach from 2020 to 2023. Prior to that, Oghobaase served as the San Francisco 49ers’ assistant defensive line coach from 2016-2017, which overlapped with Hafley’s time there as a defensive backs coach. Do not be surprised if Oghobaase ends up following Hafley to Miami, too.
With Duggan, Hafley and Downard gone, here’s what Green Bay’s on-field defensive staff looks like right now:
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Defensive coordinator: Jonathan Gannon
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Defensive line/run game coordinator: DeMarcus Covington
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Passing game coordinator: Derrick Ansley
At the absolute minimum, the Packers will need a new linebackers coach. One name who makes a lot of sense is Nick Rallis, who was Gannon’s linebackers coach with the Philadelphia Eagles (when Gannon was a defensive coordinator) and defensive coordinator with the Cardinals.
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On Gannon’s Eagles staff, when he ran a 4-3 defense, he only had three on-field coaches: a defensive line coach, a linebackers coach and a defensive backs coach. In Arizona, when he ran a 3-4 defense, he had individual coaches in charge of the defensive line, outside linebackers, inside linebackers, cornerbacks and the overall secondary. Depending on how he wants the staff to be structured, we could see one or three assistants being added to Green Bay’s defense, assuming that Covington and Ansley are retained.
Update:
Philadelphia Eagles beat reporter EJ Smith has stated that Joe Kasper, now the Eagles’ pass game coordinator/defensive backs coach, was a coach that Gannon was interested in signing to Green Bay. Kasper served as the Eagles’ safeties coach from 2024 to 2025 and was a quality control coach in Philadelphia in 2021, when Gannon was the team’s defensive coordinator. So, it looks like the Packers do want to add at least one person to coach their secondary. Whether this means that someone will be replacing Ansley or if he will just be working under Ansley, as Downard did, has yet to be reported.
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For what it’s worth, Ansley has prior experience coaching under a quarters-based system, which is what Gannon is expected to run. Ansley was Brandon Staley’s defensive backs coach from 2021 to 2022 and his defensive coordinator in 2023 with the Los Angeles Chargers. Ansley’s secondaries at the college level also ran a similar style of defense at Alabama (2016-2017) when he was a defensive backs coach and at Tennessee (2019-2020) when he was a defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach.