Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon opened his Tuesday press conference with the question everyone in Wisconsin is asking: how much time does he spend planning for the return of Micah Parsons? “Every day,” Gannon said. Asked what excites him about adding the star pass rusher to the mix, he kept it short: “It’s pretty self-explanatory, whenever that day (comes).” Then he turned to the Patriots, whom Green Bay visits on Sunday.
The Packers are 5-3 after beating the Carolina Panthers 27-19 on Thursday night, and the defense sacked Bryce Young six times, with six different players getting one. They play at Gillette Stadium on Sunday, November 8, at 4:25 p.m. ET, which is 11:25 p.m. in Cairo.
“Wins and loss is the only stat I’m worried about”
A reporter noted that Green Bay is in the top 10 in almost every stat that measures pressure on the quarterback, and asked whether Gannon thought that was possible without Parsons. He did not take the bait. “Wins and loss is the only stat I’m worried about,” he said. “Our guys have done a good job of taking the coaching and affecting the game in a positive way, executing the game plan as much as we can. And we got some guys winning at a pretty good rate of one-on-ones right now. It’s about the players.”
Asked whether the defense has changed over the season, Gannon said it adapts to the opponent and to who is available. “You adjust to who you have,” he said. “Our players are doing a good job of taking the coaching to the grass, from the meeting room to the practice field and then executing on game day.”
Cox, Hopper and the rush plans
On edge rusher Brenton Cox Jr., who had his first sack of the season against Carolina, Gannon called him “an all-down player”: “He’s really good in the run game. He’s good when he has to drop. And I think that he’s starting to hit his stride a little bit here rushing the passer.” He said his assistants did “an excellent job” with the rush plans against the Panthers, which were different for each rusher depending on who he was blocking. “I thought they really took that to heart and they won at a pretty good clip,” he said.
On linebacker Ty’Ron Hopper, who had a sack, an interception and three pass breakups on Thursday, Gannon said: “The more he plays, the better he gets.” He said the staff identified a few parts of Hopper’s game to improve and that Hopper “took it to heart.” “He’s really impacting the game for us right now,” Gannon said.
Drake Maye: “Lights out”
Asked how Drake Maye is playing compared with the start of the season, Gannon did not hold back. “Lights out, man,” he said. “Top 10 offense. He’s big, he’s accurate, he’s got a huge arm. You can’t sack him. He gets out of pressure, extends plays to throw, generates explosives, and extends plays to actually run. I think he leads the league in scramble yards. This is a huge challenge.”
Gannon remembered facing Maye as a rookie in 2024, when he was the head coach in Arizona. “He was running all over the ballpark and it was frustrating, and he’s doing that right now,” he said. “They’re Super Bowl caliber. And they’re playing that way on offense.”
He credited Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, who was the Rams’ offensive coordinator in 2011 when Gannon was a pro scout there. “Very creative. Their scheme is robust. He gets them in the right plays. They got good backs, the O-line’s good, he’s got skill guys. This is a good crew,” Gannon said. “I’ve learned a lot of football from Josh.”
Asked about the league-wide rise in three-tight-end sets, he said defenses have caught up in how they play 13 personnel, but it is still a chess match. “They got good tight ends,” he said of New England. Asked whether linebacker Zaire Franklin, who has missed the last two games, would be back this week, he said: “I don’t know that. You can ask Matt that one.”
The Zimmer influence and “talk to offensive guys”
A question about Mike Zimmer’s influence on him, and why teams struggle when defenses put six or seven players on the line of scrimmage, led to a long answer. “The fastest way to get to the quarterback is a straight line, which was attack the A gaps,” Gannon said. “Then you start adding in a seventh element, what that does to protection. Then you start adding in an eighth element.” He said the Packers’ scheme has become “a blend of all these different things,” and credited the players for learning it.
His method, he said, is to ask offensive coaches what stresses them. “You want to learn defense? Don’t talk to defensive guys. Talk to offensive guys, because they give you a different perspective on what challenges them,” Gannon said. He said LaFleur is generous with his time: “For being a head coach, he’s got a lot of empathy. He takes the time to answer questions even though I know he does not have the time.” He said the exchange goes both ways, and sometimes LaFleur has “to put the clicker down and listen to what I’m saying.”
Calling plays again, and the Panthers’ RPO
Gannon said calling the defense again has been “fun.” “It’s one thing I missed the most about being a head coach was calling it,” he said. Asked about calling the game the same way when players are out, he said the plan changes week to week with the opponent, and that some calls were “on the menu” in games and never got used because they were not the right thing to do. “I don’t like to call something that we didn’t practice throughout the week,” he said, “because you’re worried about execution of the call.”
He also owned a miss from Thursday. Asked about a play in which Carolina motioned a player and a throw to the flat went for 14 yards, Gannon said it was an RPO and the two plays involved were different coverages. “I thought we could have been a little bit better, honestly, handling some of those adjustments,” he said.
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