GREEN BAY — Mike Daniels is retired, but the former Pro Bowl defensive tackle still watches every Green Bay Packers game he can. And he still gets fired up, leaping from his couch and yelling at his television.

“I definitely have not changed,” a smiling Daniels said before joining several other former and active Packers players on the club’s annual Tailgate Tour bus earlier this week. “Not one bit.”

And while the 34-year-old Daniels emphasized he is most definitely finished playing after 10 NFL seasons — the last being a two-game stint with the Cincinnati Bengals in 2021 — that doesn’t mean he can’t live vicariously through his former teammate Kenny Clark, who Daniels believes is on the cusp of a monster season in new defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley’s more aggressive 4-3 system.

Daniels, who played with Clark for three seasons (2016-’18), expects Clark to put up bigger numbers than ever before because he’s always been in a 3-4 scheme.

“They’re going to be encouraged to make the plays and not be there for the others to make plays,” Daniels said of the defensive linemen. “I’m just excited. I’m looking forward to Week 1. I can’t wait to see the guys do it.”

Even though teams don’t spend nearly as much time in their base defenses as they used to, the up-front philosophy Hafley will employ — a one-gap scheme that will allow linemen to get upfield instead of absorbing blockers and covering each of the gaps on either side of them — will be a game-changer for Clark, Daniels said.

The Packers were in a 3-4 throughout Daniels’ seven seasons in Green Bay. When he made the Pro Bowl in 2017, he found himself in a 4-3 and was taken aback by how different it was to be responsible for covering only one gap.

“I’m in the Pro Bowl with (Carolina Panthers linebacker) Thomas Davis and he’s like, ‘Hey, just line up here.’ In my mind I’m like, ‘Wait, you mean line up here and stay here, and just play this one gap?’ He’s like. ‘Yes.’ And I was like, ‘There’s no way this is football. It was so simple, it was almost a crime,” Daniels recalled.

“I’m really looking forward to seeing that smashmouth defensive mindset be implemented in Green Bay because it’s a long time coming. The guys up front deserve a chance to be the playmakers of the defense.

“I’m excited for him. You might as well get Kenny Clark’s (Pro Football) Hall of Fame jacket and just start fitting him for it right now, man.”

Although the 28-year-old Clark has been to three Pro Bowls since the Packers took him in the first round of the 2016 NFL Draft, predicting his enshrinement in Canton might be a tad premature.

That said, Clark is coming off a 2023 season in which he started all 19 games (including playoffs) and registered a career-high eight sacks. He also had 18 quarterback hits, 10 tackles for loss, three pass deflections and two forced fumbles.

And as excited as Daniels might be for what Clark can do in Hafley’s scheme, Clark is excited, too. He met Hafley in person for the first time before the Tailgate Tour departed Lambeau Field on Tuesday, but the two talked on the phone shortly after Hafley’s hiring and Clark certainly liked what he heard.

“I think it’ll translate to my game well, especially with my get off and how I get up the field,” said Clark, who enters 2024 with only 34 career sacks, 71 QB hits and seven forced fumbles in 123 career regular-season games over his first eight seasons. “I think it’s going to allow me to be more of a playmaker, just getting upfield more, being even more disruptive, and that’s better for me.

“I’ve always been a technical guy, but it’s just going to give that mentality to just cut it loose more within the defense, and that just suits my game well.

“I think it’ll be good for (all of) us up front. It’s going to allow us to be way more disruptive.”

Clark and the rest of the defensive players will begin learning Hafley’s scheme when the voluntary offseason program officially begins on Monday. And for Clark, the change may come at the perfect time.

Set to turn 29 on Oct. 4, he’s entering the final year of the four-year, $70 million extension he signed in August 2020. A fast start could lead to his third contract with the Packers — something that for most players doesn’t come until after their 30th birthday.

With general manager Brian Gutekunst embracing an it’s-a-young-man’s-game approach to roster building of late, with fewer and fewer thirtysomethings on the team, Clark understands 2024 is a pivotal season for him.

“I’m definitely anxious about everything, but I’m excited,” Clark said of his uncertain future. “I did my part. All I’ve got to do is ball. It’s up to them to do whatever they’ve got to do (with contracts). I’ll just leave it at that.”