Report: Green Bay Packers in talks w/ Rich Bisaccia for Special Teams Coach

Over the course of the entire season, the Green Bay Packers special teams unit was a major weakness—and that’s me putting it mildly.

You name it, and at some point this season it likely went wrong for the Packers special teams group. In fact, it likely went wrong on several occasions. It nearly cost them in Cincinnati and played a factor in Kansas City as well as in Minnesota.

There was even a two-week stretch against Chicago and Baltimore where the Packers had more special teams errors than what I imagine many teams will make in an entire season.

Ultimately, the Green Bay Packers special teams unit would rank last in Rick Gosselin’s annual rankings, along with several other metrics, and special teams also played a massive role in deciding their playoff matchup with San Francisco.

So in a move that had to be made, the Green Bay Packers moved on from Maurice Drayton this past week.

Now Matt LaFleur is on the search for his third special teams coordinator in as many years, and apparently, he’s swinging for the fences in an effort to turn this unit around. According to Tom Silverstein, LaFleur has been in talks with former Raiders special teams coach and interim head coach Rich Bisaccia.

Bisaccia has plenty of experience as a special teams coordinator; he held that title from 2002 to 2010 with Tampa Bay. Again in 2011 and 2012 with the Chargers. Then from 2013 to 2017 with Dallas, and most recently 2018 through 2021 with the Raiders.

By Gosselin’s rankings, the Raiders special teams unit would finish the 2021 season ranked 11th. Over Bisaccia’s four years there, his special teams unit had an average finish of 17th, with 25th in 2019 being the worst.

Bisaccia’s units in Dallas would also finish fifth with him in charge in 2017 and 11th in 2016. Outside of his 2017 finish in Dallas, Bisaccia’s special teams units haven’t been dominant by any means, or at least not by Gosselin’s rankings; however, his years of experience alone would hopefully bring some stability to a Pakcers special teams unit that has been in the bottom third of the league for nearly a decade.

Do we want a top-10 special teams unit? Of course, we do! But if Bisaccia can field a top-20 unit and reduce the number of egregious errors, which I certainly believe he would do, that’s going to be good enough.

While bringing in the right coordinator, such as Bisaccia, is absolutely step one for this Green Bay Packers team, on top of that, special teams play needs to be more of a priority throughout the organization. This starts with there being an added emphasis on it during practice and over the summer–which maybe there has been, I’m not there, but it certainly doesn’t look like it.

This also means potentially having more of your offensive and defensive starters taking special teams snaps as well as relying more heavily on veterans with experience rather than younger players.

In addition to the report that LaFleur is in talks with Bisaccia, Silverstein would also add that Green Bay is going to have to “pay a lot” to get him to Green Bay–something that the Packers have been unwilling to do in the past. Tom would also mention that one thing Green Bay has going for them is that Bisaccia is “very tight” with Joe Barry from their time together in Tampa.

For now, we will continue to play the waiting game, but if the Green Bay Packers are truly trying to turn this unit around — which, of course, they should be — adding Bisaccia, who many believe is the top available candidate, would be a great start.