GREEN BAY, Wis. – Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur has chosen Cam Achord to be the team’s new special teams coordinator, NFL Network reported.
Achord led the New England Patriots’ special teams from 2020 through 2023. He was not retained in the coaching transition from Bill Belichick to Jerod Mayo, so spent the last two seasons as the assistant with the Giants.
Achord was one of at least five candidates who had a second interview for the Packers this week.
Cam Achord’s Resume
Belichick promoted Achord to special teams coordinator after the former coordinator, Joe Judge, was named head coach of the Giants in 2020. He got a strong endorsement from their legendary special teams player, Matthew Slater.
“Assuming that’s the direction Bill (Belichick) wants to go, I’m really confident in Cam,”Slater told The Athletic at the time. “He is a bright young coach who really relates well to the players but has the players’ respect.
"I think he did a great job this year. He had some added responsibility. I think he did a great job of handling it. Conceptually, he understands how the team wants to play. He understands the skill sets the players have and putting them in position to have success. He did a good job of learning from Joe and Bill. I think he is equipped to do the job if his number gets called.”
During his debut season, New England’s special teams finished No. 1 in Rick Gosselin’s annual special teams ranking and No. 4 in Packers On SI’s rankings.
He was unable to keep the Patriots on top, though. In Gosselin’s rankings, the Patriots fell to 18th in 2021, 16th in 2022 and 13th in 2023.
By DVOA, New England was first in 2020, 18th in 2021, 32nd in 2022 and 28th in 2023. The Patriots in 2021 gave up three blocked punts. In 2022, they gave up a pair of kickoff-return touchdowns in a late-season game against Buffalo.
As assistant with the Giants, New York in the Packers On SI rankings finished 20th in 2024 and ninth in 2025. By DVOA, the Giants were 22nd in 2024 and 23rd in 2025.
Challenge of Replacing Rich Bisaccia
A couple weeks after the season, general manager Brian Gutekunst offered a hearty endorsement for the 65-year-old Bisaccia.
“What Rich brings to our culture, this football team, he’s a very impactful coach around here,” Gutekunst said. “Certainly, I thought we’ve been better on teams the last few years than we’ve been in a long time. Our cover units have been better, we’ve got one of the best punters in the National Football League, got an excellent snapper (with Matt Orzech). Brandon (McManus) was excellent last year. This year again he worked through some things injury-wise and then had a bad playoff game. That was kind of how that ended.
“No, I’ve got a lot of faith in Rich and his staff, what they do around here, not only the X’s and O’s, what they bring to the field, but what they bring to this place culturally is really important.”
Instead, Bisaccia caught the Packers by surprise when he decided to step down after four years on the job. There was no mention of the word “retire” in the statement released by the Packers and Bisaccia, and Gutekunst at the Scouting Combine this week said “there’s other opportunities” that Bisaccia wanted to pursue.
Bisaccia’s late decision meant a diluted class of former coordinators for LaFleur to sort through following a game of musical chairs following the annual hiring and firing of head coaches. The best landed on their feet. Gutekunst, however, saw nothing but sunshine on a cloudy day.
“I think I look at it kind of glass half full,” Gutekunst said at the Scouting Combine. “This actually allows us to take our time. I think when you get into that coaching cycle, sometimes you’ve got to move fast without knowing everything you want to know about the candidates.
“Right now, we don’t have a lot of competition so Matt’s taking his time, being really thorough. The candidates that he’s bringing in, I’m pretty excited about. I know he’s going to spend some time with them this week and, hopefully, we’ll have that figured out sooner rather than later, but we’re not under any type of time crunch, which is nice.”
This story will be updated.
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