On Friday, the Green Bay Packers announced that they had hired former New York Giants assistant special teams coach Cam Achord as their new special teams coordinator. Achord replaces Rich Bisaccia, who held the role in Green Bay from 2022 through the 2025 season.
Packers name Cam Achord special teams coordinator
— Green Bay Packers (@packers) February 27, 2026
After hiring Bisaccia in 2022, the Packers showed improvement on special teams, climbing from 32nd in DVOA in 2021 to 17th. Biscaccia didn’t build on that success, though. The unit dropped to 31st in 2023, rebounded to 15th in 2024, and then slipped again to 21st in 2025.
Some fluctuation is common on special teams from year to year, but the bigger picture is clear. Green Bay was rarely better than average and more often way below it during that stretch. Achord arrives in Titletown with an immediate objective: stabilize the unit and at least bring it back to league average. If he can accomplish that early on, it would represent a meaningful first step forward.
Achord brings 10 years of NFL special teams experience, including four seasons as a coordinator. Over the past two seasons, he served as the assistant special teams coach for the Giants, where he helped guide a unit that recorded 70 kickoff returns last year — a single-season franchise record.
Before his time in New York, Achord spent six seasons with the New England Patriots. He worked as the assistant special teams coach from 2018 to 2019, then they promoted him to coordinator from 2020 to 2023. During that stretch, Achord coached two first-team All-Pro punt returners: Gunner Olszewski in 2020 and Marcus Jones in 2022.
His units experienced mixed results in the league rankings during his four-year run as a coordinator in New England. The Patriots finished first in special teams in 2020, then 18th in 2021. The group then slipped to 32nd in 2022 and 28th in 2023.
Achord’s overall results in New England don’t exactly inspire confidence, particularly given how his units performed in his final two seasons as coordinator. The late-career dip is hard to ignore and invites some legitimate questions.
That said, former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick never viewed Achord as the core issue. And when the most successful head coach in NFL history speaks, you should probably listen.
“Good coach,” Belichick said about Achord in 2023. “Led the league in special teams in ‘19 or ‘20, whatever year it was: ‘20. I don’t think that’s the problem.”
According to ESPN’s Rob Demovsky, Achord is viewed as a high-energy, young coach — and that might be exactly what this group needs. Green Bay’s special teams unit has felt lifeless at times over the past few seasons. You could argue the last true jolt of excitement came when Keisean Nixon returned a kickoff for a touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings in 2022.
105 YARDS!
Keisean Nixon takes the kick to the house ‼️@keiseannixon | #GoPackGo
📺: #MINvsGB on CBS
📱: Stream on NFL+ https://t.co/ePbCm6rlT4 pic.twitter.com/7fk3nMZvCq
— NFL (@NFL) January 1, 2023
Energy alone won’t fix everything, though. More than anything, Green Bay needs someone who can reestablish the fundamentals immediately. At a certain point, it won’t matter who is coaching the unit if the kicker can’t consistently make kicks, or if the team can’t reliably get 11 players on the field for field goal protection or block attempts. Those are baseline requirements in the NFL. When those details slip, it’s bigger than the scheme.
That’s why the issue in Green Bay has felt more cultural than purely coaching-related. Until those standards are consistently met, no coordinator — no matter how energetic — will fully fix it.