Ansley is the first major surprise in this round of interviews.
While Wink Martindale was a surprise, the Atlanta Falcons have clearly been prioritizing experience in their defensive coordinator interviews to this point. Unlike Jimmy Lake, who was entering his first year as a coordinator at the NFL level, the likes of Martindale, Jeff Ulbrich, Lou Anarumo, and Steve Wilks all have multiple years of experience in that role. The safe assumption has been that the Falcons want a more seasoned coach after Lake washed out after just one year in Atlanta.
The only interview to challenge that assumption is the one we just learned about, with Packers defensive pass game coordinator Derrick Ansley. That’s not to say that Ansley has no experience—he was the Los Angeles Chargers defensive coordinator under Brandon Staley in 2023, though he did not call plays—but that he’s not in the same league as the other names on this list in terms of time spent as a defensive coordinator.
Ansley has been a defensive backs coach throughout his career, which included stops at Huntingdon, Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky before he jumped to the pros as the Raiders defensive backs coach in 2018. He served as the defensive coordinator for Tennessee from 2019 to 2020 before joining the Chargers as their defensive backs coach, earning the elevation to defensive coordinator in 2023 before that staff was fired en masse. He spent last season with the Packers, serving as their defensive pass game coordinator, where Green Bay finished around the fringes of a top 10 defense, as they did in 2023. Ansley did get a chance to take over play calling over the final three weeks of the 2023 season with the Chargers after Staley’s team allowed 63 points to the hapless Raiders and he was quickly fired; Ansley’s Bolts impressively held the Bills to 24 points and the Chiefs to 13 in two of the final three matchups.
Ansley has to be viewed as a longshot for this role not because of any particular lack of merit—his work in college and the pros has been quality—but because the Falcons have otherwise interviewed more experienced candidates with the knowledge that Lake’s inexperience and the gamble Raheem Morris took on him led to such poor 2023 outcomes. He would be an extremely qualified candidate for a defensive pass game coordinator role in Atlanta, a title that is currently not on the Falcons’ staff, if he were willing to jump from Green Bay under a new defensive coordinator.
We’ll see if Ansley can surprise and land the job, but at the very least it’s good to see the Falcons casting a wide net in their search given the importance of replacing Lake with a very good coach.