Once again, Matt LaFleur had the Green Bay Packers winning a lot of games and reaching the playoffs behind one of the most efficient offenses in the NFL. And once again, it didn't add up to a whole lot come January: LaFleur's Packers collapsed in a stunning come-from-ahead loss to the Chicago Bears in the Wild Card round on Saturday night, allowing 25 fourth-quarter points while turning a 27-16 lead into a 31-27 loss.
The morning after, much of Wisconsin appears to have had enough. It's been seven years under LaFleur now, and the Packers have a 3-6 playoff record and one conference championship game appearance to show for it. More troublingly, the trend lines don't appear to be going in the right direction, and it's hard to avoid the ways in which this team comes up small when it matters most.
Then again, a lot of teams would kill to have Green Bay's problems right now. So which is it: Is LaFleur simply taking the fall for things out of his control, or should the Packers really consider a shocking change at the top?
The case for keeping Matt LaFleur as Packers head coach
He remains an elite play-caller
There's no one blueprint for finding a successful NFL head coach; firms full of consultants have been made rich trying to figure out the answer, and it still feels like we're no closer than we were a decade ago. But as a general rule of thumb: If you find yourself in possession of a great play-caller, particularly on the offensive side, you hang on to that person come hell or high water.
And make no mistake: LaFleur remains a great play-caller, one of the very best in the league. Since he arrived in 2019, Green Bay has been a mainstay in the top 10 in terms of offensive DVOA, and more often than not they've been in the top five — including a No. 1 overall finish in 2020. That's in spite of significant personnel changes at just about every position group imaginable, including the transition from Aaron Rodgers to Jordan Love at QB.
We have a significant body of evidence at this point to suggest that wherever LaFleur goes, elite offense follows. It's hard to overstate how valuable that is in today's NFL.
He arguably overachieved this season
That might be a strange thing to say about a team that lost each of its final five games and failed to get out of the Wild Card round. But it's worth reiterating just how many injuries this Packers team had to weather along the way: They began the year without No. 1 target Christian Watson, spent five games without star right tackle Zach Tom and lost tight end Tucker Kraft, center Elgton Jenkins and all-world pass rusher Micah Parsons to season-ending injuries.
And yet, despite all of that, and despite punting Week 18's game against the Vikings, LaFleur still had this as a top-10 team by DVOA — sixth on offense. Is there really a way to argue that those results aren't doing more with less? If anything, the 2025 season is a testament to how high-floor a coach LaFleur truly is, capable of making chicken salad out of you-know-what no matter what's going on around him.
Who are you getting to replace him?
This is maybe the most compelling argument. Go through any list of the most commonly discussed head coaching candidates in this year's carousel: It's a very strange group, short on proven commodities. John Harbaugh? He's 17 years older than LaFleur, and there's no guarantee the game hasn't passed him by based on how things ended in Baltimore. (If you're sick of underachieving in the playoffs, I have some bad news.) Mike McDaniel? A brilliant offensive mind, no doubt, but his profile is basically identical to LaFleur's with even less of a track record of success as a head coach.
LaFleur has six winning seasons and four double digit-win seasons in seven years at the helm in Green Bay. If you're going to turn up your nose at that, you need to be able to confidently answer the question of what comes next. I'm not sure there's any realistic candidate out there who makes you feel better about winning games moving forward. You might find yourself missing the guy who was a walking top-10 offense, developed a Pro Bowl-caliber quarterback and made a successful DC hire the last time he needed to.
The case against keeping Matt LaFleur as Packers head coach
The collapses are becoming a trend
The on-paper argument for LaFleur is, admittedly, a compelling one. But games, and especially playoff games, aren't played on paper. And watching his team perform in the highest-leverage situations, it's not hard to see why Packers fans are fed up right now.
Just look at Saturday night as an example. Sure, LaFleur isn't responsible for his kicker having a complete meltdown and a banged-up defense being on its last legs. But his management of that fourth quarter also left a lot to be desired, from the inability (or unwillingness) to run more clock when his offense had the ball late to the fact that Green Bay took a delay of game while coming out of a timeout on a crucial third down.
LaFleur is now 1-4 in his last five playoff games, and it's disturbing how those four losses have played out: blowing two exceedingly winnable games against the 49ers in 2021 and 2023, sleepwalking through a Wild Card game in Philly last season and then the debacle at Soldier Field this weekend. At a certain point, showing up small becomes a trend, and LaFleur's teams don't seem to be made of the stuff required to go on extended postseason runs. Of course, you can't win the big one until you do, but be honest: Do you have faith in a LaFleur team come January?
He might be best suited as a coordinator
Doing it all as a head coach in the NFL, especially in 2025, is really hard. LaFleur's schematic chops speak for themselves; he remains on the cutting edge of offense even now, and 26 or 27 teams would kill to have him calling plays for them next season. But it's hard to keep all those plates spinning at once, and it's worth wondering whether LaFleur's unable to bring the necessary attention to detail to bear as he's so caught up with his side of the ball.
We've seen this dynamic play out before. Sure, guys like Sean Payton, Liam Coen, Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan have led their teams to the playoffs this season as play-callers, but it's not for everyone. LaFleur might just need to find his level.
Which direction does Green Bay need to go this offseason?
The verdict: Keep him, with a caveat
LaFleur's consistently excellent work on offense, combined with the lack of any slam-dunk alternatives, have me landing on the side of keeping him around. But I do so with some hesitancy: I think the problems that have plagued his teams in crunch time are real, and are in many ways under his control. If he doesn't find a way to address them, he risks eventually losing his locker room.
Maybe it's a matter of taking some things off his plate. Maybe he needs to spend the offseason traveling around and internalizing new ideas. Maybe he needs to hire a dedicated game-management specialist. Combine LaFleur with a strand or two of the Jim Harbaugh DNA, and you'd have an elite head coach.
Whatever the solution is, though, LaFleur can't keep doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result. This isn't a matter of staying the course; the Packers need to shake things up, and that includes GM Brian Gutekunst. LaFleur's value-add keeps him safe for now, but if he flames out again in 2026, the conversation could end differently.