Former Green Bay Packers special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia stepped down from his post in mid-February and has now officially signed with the Clemson Tigers, where he previously spent time from 1994 to 1998, as their new coordinator. In the team’s announcement of the Bisaccia signing, he said something interesting in terms of the timing of this deal.
“After I made the decision to move in a new direction, Coach Swinney approached me with the opportunity to come back to a place that holds special meaning for me and my family.”
At least per Bisaccia’s timeline, he decided to step away from the Packers before Clemson had offered him an opportunity to return to his old stomping grounds. Besides that, he made no comments about his decision to leave Green Bay in the press release.
Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney did make this statement, though:
“But with the changing of the rules to allow everybody to coach on the field and where he was in his career, he really wanted to finish here at Clemson.”
I’m not fully sure I buy that Bisaccia has taken his last job at 65 years old. For example, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers just hired a 72-year-old special teams coordinator in Danny Smith this cycle. If he wants to, Bisaccia can probably bounce back into the league, like Joe DeCamillis, who went from South Carolina to the Las Vegas Raiders this offseason, did this year.
Update: For some added context, Byron Storer, who was the Packers’ number two in their special teams room before taking the Cleveland Browns’ special teams coordinator job, said in his opening press conference that he was told by Bisaccia that he was going to step down from Green Bay before his announcement, but it was after Storer had “already got the job in Cleveland.” Storer was hired on February 10th, according to reports, and Bisaccia stepped down on February 17th, so this all apparently happened very quickly.