The Green Bay Packers have hired a coach from the New York Giants as their quarterbacks coach. Again, it wasn’t the guy we expected. Frank Cignetti will take over for Alex Van Pelt, who was let go along with offensive coordinator Edgar Bennett following the season.
Joe Philbin is officially back in as the Packers’ OC, which we knew was happening last week. Philbin served as the Packers’ offensive coordinator from 2007-11, before taking the head job with the Miami Dolphins.
As for the quarterbacks coach job, we expected it to go to former New York Giants coach Ben McAdoo. He served in that role with the Packers from 2012-13. He was the team’s tight ends coach from 2006-11.
Cignetti was the Giants’ quarterbacks coach from 2016-17. Prior to that, he was the St. Louis Rams’ offensive coordinator (2015), their quarterbacks coach (2012-14), the offensive coordinator at Rutgers (2011) and so on and so forth. Cignetti has been either a quarterbacks coach or offensive coordinator in the NFL or at a major college program dating back to 2000.
Like coach Mike McCarthy, Cignetti has Pittsburgh roots. That’s not really something to be overlooked at this point. Of the new hires thus far — two of three have Pennsylvania roots. The outlier is Philbin.
The Packers currently still have openings at wide receivers coach, defensive line coach and assistant linebackers coach.