NFL’s Highest-Paid Special Teams Coach Abandons Packers After 19-Year Curse

Rich Bisaccia was born in Yonkers, New York, the son of a man so obsessed with the Giants that he joked his dad was “the head football coach of the New York Giants — he just never told anybody.” That love of the game sent Bisaccia on a 42-year coaching odyssey, from playing at a tiny college in South Dakota to coaching at Wayne State in Nebraska. From a Super Bowl ring in Tampa Bay to leading the Las Vegas Raiders through one of the most chaotic seasons in NFL history. On February 17, he quietly walked away from the Green Bay Packers, the team that made him the highest-paid special teams coordinator in football. Four seasons. Not a single unit that lived up to the price tag. And a 19-year franchise curse he was supposed to break.

The Man They Hired to Fix Everything

Green Bay threw top-dollar money at Bisaccia in February 2022 for a reason. The previous January, the Packers watched their Super Bowl hopes die on a blocked punt returned for a touchdown and a special teams meltdown in the divisional round against the 49ers, a game that ended with Robbie Gould’s walk-off field goal while Green Bay had only 10 men on the field. The front office decided enough was enough. Bisaccia had just taken the Raiders to the playoffs as an interim head coach – navigating Jon Gruden’s resignation, Henry Ruggs III’s fatal car crash, and a locker room that could have crumbled. His players loved him. His colleagues called him the most natural leader they’d ever been around. This wasn’t just a coordinator hire. This was supposed to be the fix.

Year One Gave Them Hope

In Bisaccia’s first season, Keisean Nixon exploded as a kick returner, earning first-team All-Pro honors while leading the NFL in kick return yards. Nixon made it look like Bisaccia had flipped a switch. But the rest of the unit told a different story, Green Bay’s overall special teams grades remained stuck in the bottom half of the league. Respectable in spots, not revelatory as a whole. Then the bottom fell out. The Packers’ special teams cratered the following season, and Bisaccia’s hand-picked kicker, rookie Anders Carlson, had such a dismal year that he was gone before the next September. The early promise was a mirage.

The Punter Who Proved the Problem Wasn’t Talent

Here’s the contradiction that should keep the Packers front office up at night. In 2025, punter Daniel Whelan led the entire NFL with a 51.7-yard gross punting average, setting a new franchise record. The man was historically good under Bisaccia’s coaching. And the Packers’ punt return unit? Dead last in the league at 5.6 yards per attempt. Same coach. Same staff meetings. Same building. One group thrived, the other was the worst in professional football. That’s not a talent problem. That’s a priority problem.

The Night It All Fell Apart in Chicago

January 10, 2026, Soldier Field. The Packers built a 21-3 halftime lead over the Bears in the NFC Wild Card Round, and lost 31-27. Brandon McManus, the veteran kicker Bisaccia’s unit leaned on all season, missed three kicks: a 55-yarder that was initially good but wiped out by a Bears timeout and then missed on the retry, an extra point that kept Chicago within arm’s reach, and a 44-yarder in the fourth quarter while Green Bay clung to a three-point lead. Seven points left on the frozen turf. On the other sideline, Cairo Santos was perfect — drilling a 51-yarder among his makes and not missing a single attempt all game. The season ended not with a defensive collapse or a Jordan Love interception … it ended on the leg of the kicker the special teams coordinator was responsible for putting in position to succeed.

“I Felt Like I’ve Failed Him”

What makes this departure sting isn’t the stats. It’s the words Bisaccia said nine months before he left. During the offseason last May, he told reporters he had considered stepping down after the 2024 season because, “I felt like I’ve failed him at times in some of the things in the way in which we played.” He was talking about Matt LaFleur, the head coach who gave him the job and the title of assistant head coach. But then Bisaccia said he was “really excited about being here and having the opportunity to win a championship.” He chose to stay. He made a commitment. And then the 2025 season played out like every other year — blocked kicks, muffed recoveries, dead-last return numbers — he walked away anyway.

The Timing That Borders on Sabotage

Bisaccia waited 38 days after the season ended to make his decision public. By February 17, ten teams with new head coaches had already filled their special teams coordinator positions. His top assistant, Byron Storer, the obvious internal replacement, had already taken the coordinator job in Cleveland a full week earlier. Only a handful of special teams coordinator spots from the 2025 cycle remain unfilled league-wide, and the best available names were already off the board. Whether Bisaccia intended it or not, the timing left Green Bay scrambling with the thinnest candidate pool imaginable. General manager Brian Gutekunst had publicly said just weeks before that he wanted Bisaccia back. LaFleur called the loss “disappointing.” They got blindsided.

19 Years, Six Coordinators, One Broken Machine

This goes deeper than one man though. Green Bay hasn’t fielded an above-average special teams unit since 2007, a drought that has now survived two head coaches and six different coordinators. Mike Stock, Shawn Slocum, Ron Zook, Shawn Mennenga, Mo Drayton, Bisaccia. All tried. All failed. Under Bisaccia alone, the Packers never cracked the top half of the league in most analytical rankings and bottomed out near dead last. When every coordinator produces the same result, the coordinator isn’t the disease. He’s the symptom. Something in Green Bay’s organizational DNA, its philosophy, its roster construction, its allocation of resources has been poisoning the third phase for nearly two decades.

The Draft-and-Develop Straitjacket

The Packers build rosters through the draft, and they develop homegrown talent. It works beautifully for offense and defense. On special teams, it’s a straitjacket. Green Bay doesn’t sign return specialists in free agency. They don’t use premium draft capital on kickers or gunners. They build a 53-man roster to serve Jordan Love and the defense, then ask those same players to moonlight on punt coverage and kick returns. Nixon gave up return duties entirely in 2025 after two All-Pro seasons, and the front office never replaced that production. The Packers ranked among the league’s worst in touchback rate and special teams penalties. You can’t fix the third phase with leftover parts, and Green Bay has been trying for 19 straight years.

The Seventh Coordinator Faces a Ghost

The Packers are now searching for their seventh special teams coordinator since 2007. Whoever gets the job inherits a punter who can flip fields, a kicker who might get cut, no proven return man, and a front office that has never prioritized the third phase the way winning organizations do. Bisaccia was supposed to be the answe, a football lifer, a beloved leader, a man who held the Raiders together through genuine tragedy. If he couldn’t break the curse, the next guy won’t either. Not unless Green Bay finally admits the problem was never the coach. It’s the entire machine around him.

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Sources:
“Packers special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia steps down” — ESPN
“Rich Bisaccia steps down as Packers special teams coordinator” — Packers Wire / USA Today
“Football lifer Rich Bisaccia tasked with leading Las Vegas Raiders through choppy waters” — ESPN
“Packers In A Bind As Search For New Special Teams Coordinator Begins” — Forbes
“The Packers’ special-teams problems are bigger than Rich Bisaccia” — The Leap Football
“Good, bad and ugly from Packers’ playoff collapse to Bears” — Packers Wire / USA Today