In classic Green Bay Packers fashion, the first half of their season was riddled with stressful moments, but they managed to come out in strong position to push for a high playoff seed.

Sitting at 6-3 heading into their week 10 bye, the Packers struck renewed success on the defensive side of the ball while also reminding the league just how dangerous they can be on offense. But the newfound success for the defense, after a decade of mostly disappointing seasons, has seemingly come at the cost of the offense unable to get out of its own way.

Generally speaking, it has not been the start to the season that most fans or the Packers expected. How could it be when the defense is no longer the problem in Green Bay? And while the offense has struggled to hit its stride, it's still been one of the more potent and explosive units in football. Now, it's about cleaning up the self-inflicted mistakes and putting it all together in the back half of the season, as they did last year.

Here are two takeaways with half of the season behind the Pack.

The defense is back, but the pass rush is missing

Finally, Matt LaFleur has found a defensive coordinator. After a huge swing and miss with hiring Joe Barry, the Jeff Hafley hire was critical for LaFleur to get right.

The result halfway through have far exceeded expectations.

Undoubtedly, the most noticeable change has been in the turnover department. It took only eight games for Hafley and Co. to produce more turnovers than they had all of last season (18). A leading contributor to that success is free agent safety Xavier McKinney, who's already set a career-high in interceptions (6) that currently also leads the NFL.

Rookies Edgerrin Cooper and Evan Williams, despite limited playing time early, have also played critical roles in the Packers' defensive turnaround. Of safeties with at least 200 snaps, Williams is currently PFF's 4th highest-graded safety (87.4), right behind McKinney (89.5). For the first time since Nick Collins graced the football field, it seems the Packers have the safety position figured out, and it's paying dividends.

For Cooper, and similarly to Williams, just flick on the tape. The guy is everywhere, making every play in every phase of the game. A testament to his play was claiming defensive player of the week honors in week eight. It marks the first time a Packers rookie has won the award since Clay Matthews in 2009, and he is the first rookie to win the honors this season. Cooper has also been one of the lone bright spots in the Packers' pass rush this season, owning PFF's highest pass-rush grade in the NFL of all off-ball linebackers (90.4).

This leads to the next most notable change and the only real concern in Hafley's defense: the pass rush.

From Rashan Gary to Kenny Clark to Lukas Van Ness and Preston Smith, no one is consistently getting home to the quarterback. So much so that Smith being such a poor scheme fit led to the Packers' decision to deal him at the trade deadline. Right now, the Packers are 16th in sacks per game (2.4), but adjust down an extreme sack outlier game against the Tennessee Titans, where they recorded 8 sacks, and they find themselves near the bottom of the league. According to PFF, Kenny Clark leads the Packers with only 14 pressures on the season, 50th in the league.

The scheme has seemingly asked the edge players to play more contain, and while it has worked to the tune of the Packers ranking 10th in rush yards allowed per game (113), the cornerback play has not been good enough to produce "coverage sacks." For the Packers' defense to take the next step in the back half of the season, especially with going all in on Van Ness and other young edge rushers, the scheme needs to recalibrate to get pass rushers in quarterbacks' laps more often.

Despite generally poor output from starters Quay Walker, Isaiah McDuffie, Eric Stokes, and Keisean Nixon, the Packers are allowing the 11th fewest yards per game. They just held the league's top offense, the Detroit Lions, to one of their lowest total outputs on the season, lowering their pass yards allowed per game to 207 yards (13th). They also own a 33.01% third-down conversion rate, which is fourth in the NFL and on pace to be their lowest third-down conversion percentage since 2007.

All in all, Hafley's scheme is working well, and he's been able to get more out of the defensive backs than the last scheme. While the pass rush hasn't gotten home as much as the talent has proven capable of, they've been exceedingly more impressive in run defense. This is a refreshing change from what seemed like a problem the Packers would never fix. After facing numerous playoff offenses in the early goings, their 13th-ranked defense-adjusted value over average (DVOA) is impressive for a first-time coordinator.

Explosive but uncharacteristically sloppy offense

Love has tapped into his inner Brett Favre gunslinger mentality this season, while Dontayvion Wicks is taking his year two Davante Adams impression a little too seriously with all the drops. To make matters worse, the back-breaking penalties have gotten out of hand, wiping off big play after big play.

Newly added running back Josh Jacobs has felt the brunt of the Packers' 7.3 penalties per game, which is far and away the highest in the LaFleur era. They also have the second-most pre-snap penalties in the league (30).

That being so, Jacobs has still managed to produce the fourth most runs of at least 10 yards (20), but would be leading the league had holding penalties not wiped out his runs. He's nonetheless been a major contributor to the Packer's explosiveness this season and is looking like an All-Pro again. With elusive side steps and powering through the first tackle, he owns the third most rushing yards (762) and fourth most forced missed tackles in football (33). The offensive line doesn't have many players registering strong run-blocking grades this season, so a lot of credit is due to the play design, Jacobs, and Emanuel Wilson for the Packers being third in the NFL for runs of at least 20 yards (11).

Regarding Love, the interceptions are reminiscent of the first half of last season, but the new wrinkle to his game is forcing throws into tight, double, or triple coverage - almost like he watched firsthand Aaron Rodgers do the same thing with Adams for a few seasons. Unfortunately, the results have led to a league-leading 10 interceptions, and even General Manager Brian Gutekunst acknowledged Love's recent issues.

"Every interception is a little different. I'm not overly concerned. It has to get better. I think we all know that. But at the same time, I'm not overly concerned," said Gutekunst.

But the slow-to-get-going passing attack isn't all on Love. The Packers are simply dropping too many passes, particularly Wicks. As a team, the Packers have the fourth-most drops on the season (20), leading to 9.8% of Love's passing hitting the ground, third most among quarterbacks with at least 200 attempts. Like the penalties, it's another uncharacteristic, self-inflicted issue that the Packers usually don't have issues with. 

The encouraging takeaway here is that throughout it all, the Packers still own the 13th-highest explosive play rate (10.9%) and 6th-highest explosive run rate (3.4%). They haven't been nearly as efficient on offense as past seasons, but reducing the drops and penalties will go a long way to improve their standing there. The mistakes are correctable and out of the norm, so there shouldn't be panic that this is what the rest of season Packers will look like. But the bye week will be critical to clean up the miscues.