The biggest storyline of the Packers offseason has been the transition at quarterback from Aaron Rodgers to Jordan Love, but offense isn’t going to be the entire story of the 2023 season in Green Bay.
Defense will play a major role in the fate of the Packers this season and the unit’s work last year led to in-season chatter about changing defensive coordinators. Joe Barry remained in the role through the season and the Packers opted not to make a change this offseason after seeing improved results in the later weeks of the year.
On Tuesday, Barry identified the area he believes the Packers need to address in order to have a more successful season in 2023.
“You mentioned [Rodgers] and his honors. It really doesn’t matter on our side of the ball, the defensive side of the ball. That’s the thing that we’ve got to do week in and week out,” Barry said, via Jason Wilde of Madison.com. “We’ve got to show up and play our best version of football, our best version of defense. We can’t be up one week and down the next. We’ve got to find that consistency and show up every single week. The last five or six weeks of the season, we found that. We don’t have time to waste 10 weeks. We’re in May. That’s what OTAs are for. That’s what the offseason is for. That’s what training camp is for. But we’ve got to be much more consistent than we were a year ago, week in and week out.”
The effort to put forth a more consistent effort will include first-round defensive end Lukas Van Ness and four other draft picks. Preparing them for the fall will be a key part of the rest of the offseason work in Green Bay.