Packers Discussion: Did Rich Bisaccia step away on his own volition?

This has been floating around the Green Bay Packers-sphere since the announcement that Rich Bisaccia stepped down from his gig as the Packers’ special teams coordinator. There’s one camp that believes that Bisaccia actually left his post voluntarily, and there’s another that thinks he was forced out by head coach Matt LaFleur.

Personally, I think Bisaccia really did leave on hisown. There are a couple of factors why:

1. It was February 17th when the job became available, after all 11 other special teams coordinator positions league-wide had already been filled. Those hires include coaches who previously worked with either LaFleur or new defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon: Craig Aukerman (hired by Falcons, was in Tennessee with LaFleur), Danny Smith (hired by Buccaneers, was in Washington with LaFleur) and Jeff Rodgers (hired by Bills, was Gannon’s coordinator in Arizona).
2. Some people have made comments like “Well, the Packers can take their time since they’re not doing anything right now,” and that couldn’t be further from the truth. The combine, a league-wide tampering event heading into free agency that doubles as the premier scouting event of the calendar, is in less than a week. The meetings leading up to the combine sort of set the tone for the team’s strategy going into the upcoming year. Not only does the team not have a special teams coordinator, but LaFleur’s time will be taken away from this offseason prep to run this search (it will be interesting to see if LaFleur even makes the trip to Indianapolis this year). The real vacation time in the NFL is from mid-June, after minicamp, to mid-July, when training camp starts. Every club in the league is working full-time at this point in the calendar. This timing sucks, and there’s no way around it. It’s a hard sell for me to believe that LaFleur was too antsy about the defensive coordinator market to wait for the conference round games to play out so that he could interview Jim Leonhard for the gig, but that he’d wait for another month before putting the pressure on Rich to leave, only after 11 other special teams coordinators were hired elsewhere.
3. I wouldn’t be surprised if this decision was made suddenly, considering that Bisaccia’s number two, Byron Storer, took the Cleveland Browns’ job just a week before Bisaccia’s announcement. LaFleur seems to still be interested in the Bisaccia tree, as it has been reported by Sports Illustrated’s Bill Huber that Green Bay will interview Kyle Wilber, a former special teams quality control coach for the Packers under Bisaccia, for their vacancy. If LaFleur had seen this Bisaccia decision coming, you’d think he would have wanted to interview Storer, one of just two first-time coordinators who were hired to NFL jobs this cycle.
4. This is hardly breaking news, but the special teams people in the league that I actually know were pretty surprised by the decision, but don’t have knowledge, one way or another, on the specifics of why Bisaccia isn’t in Green Bay anymore. When I was on the radio earlier today with the Wisconsin Sports Radio Network, host Steve Fifer relayed a conversation he had with punter Daniel Whelan after the announcement, who said that Bisaccia is in good health and that his decision was just personal.
5. We’ve covered what Bisaccia is or isn’t for the Packers ad nauseam over the past couple of seasons, but one undeniable thing is that he’s beloved in that building. If you missed it, check the end of general manager Brian Gutekunst’s end-of-the-year press conference, where he talks about Bisaccia. He sang Bisaccia’s praises pretty loudly.

This is just something I think, not know, but the scenario that makes this timing make the most sense to me is that Bisaccia heard things he did not like in those 2026 meetings and decided he wanted out. A possible pressure point, for example, would be the fifth-linebacker spot, a role that was filled at different points in the season by Nick Niemann and Kristian Welch. That is the one special-teams-only position that the Packers’ draft-and-develop-heavy roster carries on either the 53-man roster or 48-man gameday roster consistently, and they’ve only done it under defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley’s 4-3 defense. When they have played the 3-4 in the past, the team has usually carried just four off-ball linebackers into games, and they’re expected (but not confirmed) to run a 3-4 defense under Gannon.

That fifth-linebacker spot doesn’t solve all of the Packers’ special teams woes, but it does help A LOT in the coverage units (kickoff and punt). For perspective, per DVOA, the only team better in both coverage units than Green Bay in 2025 was the Washington Commanders.

I don’t think that the fifth linebacker spot is something Bisaccia would resign over, but it could be one of a couple of contributing factors. Other significant special teams contributors, beyond Niemann and Welch, who are free agents in 2026 include defensive end Kingsley Enagbare (rush teams and also a punt protector), running back Chris Brooks (kickoff return blocker), safety Zayne Anderson (all-around solid special teamer) and defensive end Aaron Mosby (another ace who sometimes was kept up on the 53-man roster as a special teams-only guy like the fifth-linebacker, but he wasn’t even activated until Week 10 in 2025).

Throw in some bad news about those five guys potentially all being allowed to hit the market during the 2026 meetings on top of Storer leaving, and I can see it being much more plausible that Bisaccia decided to step away on his own, rather than LaFleur wanting to start his fourth special teams coordinator search on February 17th after 31 other teams around the league already had their guys locked in. I don’t think Bisaccia heard “We’ll finally be adequately investing in special teams for the first time in two-plus decades” in those meetings before stepping away.

Maybe I’m wrong. I’m just trying to read the tea leaves as best I can. I would like to hear your guys’ thoughts on the situation.