Unless the Packers have a truly catastrophic end to this season, I don’t think there’s any real chance Matt LaFleur is going to get fired.
There’s been plenty of discussion about LaFleur’s employment prospects with the Packers this week, but the reality is there’s probably not much upside to making that change now, and it probably wouldn’t be accompanied by much other significant change. Maybe the Packers install Jeff Hafley as their head coach and let him hire an offensive staff, but that’s a big, tricky ask in the middle of what amounts to a two-year Super Bowl window.
The reality is, LaFleur’s probably going to be the guy who guides the Packers through this window of contention, like it or not. But that doesn’t mean history won’t judge him. And of the key figures in the Packers’ organization right now, I think LaFleur is the most squarely in the crosshairs to be judged harshly.
LaFleur is toward the top end of the depth chart of the seven or eight most important people in the Packers’ franchise right now. That list includes, in some order, LaFleur, general manager Brian Gutekunst, president Ed Policy, executive vice president/director of football operations Russ Ball, offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich, defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley, special teams coordinator/assistant head coach Rich Bisaccia, and quarterback Jordan Love. You could throw recently acquired edge rusher Micah Parsons in there if you’d like, but I wouldn’t right now; the rest of that group has been a core part of the Packers for a considerable amount of time, and Parsons, while important, is merely an important (and expensive) recent addition.
Of the people on that list, I think LaFleur has the most on the line right now and will be judged the most harshly if this season ends in disappointment.
Policy is essentially a newcomer; he’s been the Packers’ president for about 15 minutes in the grand scheme of things. He’ll likely be judged by what happens after LaFleur, or how the Packers move on from him, if that happens.
Gutekunst has played his part this season. He constructed the Packers’ talented, if flawed, offense, and he made the bold move for Micah Parsons. Yes, he bears blame for the Packers’ punchless defensive line — that unit has been a problem since Gutekunst took over, and it’s gone essentially unaddressed outside of Devonte Wyatt. But as far as this year’s Packers’ team is concerned, and more or less next year’s, too, Gutekunst’s work is done.
Ball, if you want to include him, is a silent partner in the Packers’ power structure. As long as the contracts fit under the cap, there’s really nothing to criticize about Ball. He’s off the hook.
The Packers’ coordinators, too, are largely out of the crosshairs. Stenavich amounts to an over-employed offensive line coach. Hafley’s unit is performing well enough, given the personnel limitations he’s dealing with. Bisaccia, a punching bag for Packers’ fans, is limited by the players LaFleur allows him to play. There are reasons to be critical of each of these coaches, to be sure, but those reasons are diminished somewhat by two additional facts: they’re limited by what they have available, and they were all hired by LaFleur. The ultimate blame for whatever issues they have falls further up the food chain.
And then there’s Love, who should escape most criticism for the simple reason that he’s playing well. No, he’s not perfect, but he’s doing an admirable job this year, is on pace for career highs in most major stats, and has done a better job lately of limiting major mistakes.
But LaFleur’s signature unit, the offense, is struggling and inconsistent. He seems to envision the Packers as a power running, heavy personnel team, but they simply aren’t. They don’t run the ball consistently enough to grind out drives, and the tight ends behind Tucker Kraft weren’t good enough to support LaFleur’s 12 personnel aspirations. Now that Kraft is out of the picture, the prudent thing to do would be to pivot to a new offensive approach. Do you have confidence that LaFleur can or will do that? If so, you have a higher opinion of him at the moment than I do.
And even outside of his schematic approach, LaFleur’s decision-making this year has been suspect. His approach to fourth downs is haphazard and capricious. He vacillates between needing Jordan Love to shame him into going for a key fourth down late in the game against the Cardinals and being so committed to going for it on fourth down against the Panthers that he completely misreads the game situation. He’s at least improved his record on challenges this year, but that could be in part because the NFL [has made more replays available in coaching booths](https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/46675881/nfl-replay-review-challenges-success-rates) and not because he’s necessarily any better at grasping when challenges need to be made. At least he rightly challenged Josh Jacobs’ touchdown plunge against the Panthers when the officials bizarrely ruled Jacobs short.
That’s a crazy small upside, though. In a year when the Packers have genuine Super Bowl aspirations, you’d hope for a little more out of the head ball coach than “he’s performing slightly better on challenges in a season where challenges are easier.” If the Packers fall short of the ultimate prize this year, LaFleur is going to take the bulk of the blame. That may not be enough to result in a coaching change, but history isn’t kind to coaches who fail when the stakes are highest, whether they get fired or not. And for LaFleur, whose career accomplishments so far include two trips to the NFC Championship game, two divisional round losses where his team held a fourth-quarter lead, and no Super Bowl appearances, failing to rise to the moment is becoming an awfully familiar routine.
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