Fire Matt LaFleur

[Heyjoe4]

It's made all the more shocking IMO by the fact that we have a GM in Gute who is generally pretty good about moving on from players even though it might seem "too early". We've had plenty of cases where we cut/trade/let walk a player who many of us thought would be sticking around...only for them to quickly fall off after leaving GB. Generally speaking I think when we have an opportunity to move on from a player at a reasonable cost, Gute does a good job of balancing that rather than keeping someone around until they're a total liability and THEN moving on.

But Matt is the total opposite, and it's not like this is anything new. He will give you a million chances and it's not till mistake #1,000,001 is screaming in his face that he will finally act. Under Maurice Drayton, we had quite literally the WORST (32/32) special teams unit in the league yet he was brought back for another season and it wasn't until special teams clearly and directly got us bounced by SF in the playoffs that Matt finally summoned up the stones to act. Everyone and their mom knew this was the obvious conclusion for MONTHS but he simply would not do it. In the case of Bisaccia, special teams has consistently been terrible but Matt's shown no indication that he'd consider a change there; rather he has actually *promoted* Rich in that time.

"You're only as good as the people you have around you." - John C. Maxwell

Thanks Magooch. Excellent compare/contrast of Gluten and MLF.

It's hard to move on from a player who has contributed to winning - Jenkins will be gone next year. And it wasn't that hard to include Kenny Clark in the trade for Parsons. If I recall, Mike Daniels was let go before he clearly started to decline, and the timing was right on that.

But yeah what is up w/ MLF and his coaches? Joe Barry was kept at least two years too long (and that's out of three total years as DC, I think). I forgot about Mauruce Drayton because he was, well, forgettable.

And now it's Bisaccia who has been kept too long. I think most of us have been surprised by the lack of growth since hiring Bisaccia, and he seems like a great guy. But STs accountability begins with the STC. If performance is sub par, a change has to be made, sooner rather than later. MLF drags his feet.

 

[Heyjoe4]

Per Pro Football reference:

#31 in yards per punt return
#21 in yards per kick return
#23 in field goal percentage
#26 in extra point percentage
#2 in total yards per punt
#7 in net yards per punt
#32 for punts downed inside the 20 (total; #28 by percentage)
#12 in yards allowed per punt return
#18 in yards allowed per kickoff return
#19 in opponent FG percentage
#26 in opponent XP percentage
#25 in yards per punt allowed against

And just for a point of comparison - last season:
#24 in yards per punt return
#14 in yards per kick return
#18 in field goal percentage
#6 in extra point percentage
#24 in total yards per punt
#27 in net yards per punt
#24 for punts downed inside the 20 (total; #22 by percentage)
#8 in yards allowed per punt return
#23 in yards allowed per kickoff return
#16 in opponent FG percentage
#14 in opponent XP percentage
#15 in yards per punt allowed against

McManus is currently #27 in field goal percentage and #17 in XP percentage. He is tied for 23rd in 50+ yard field goals and tied for 30th in 40-49 yard field goals.

Bisaccia's ST ranked 22nd and 29th in 2022 and 2023 (Gosselin) and by DVOA were 16th last season and floating between 21st-28th this season.

This is with, by all accounts, the highest-paid ST coordinator in the league.

Yeah this is the offseason to find a new STC. Too bad, Bisaccia seemed like a great hire. It just didn't work out, and he's been here one year too long already. MLF needs to find someone new.

 

[Heyjoe4]

Agree with most of this.

I don’t hold it against MLF that he hasn’t won a Super Bowl.

Not being to one after 7 seasons isn’t a dealbreaker, but it definitely counts against him.

The lack of clear progression is the most concerning thing to me. We hear every season — “youngest team in the league!”

Okay. So they should be young and *improving*, right? Being young means nothing without the implication that the arrow is pointing up. Otherwise, it’s just ages.

2023 - 7 seed and a big wild card win followed by close divisional loss

2024 - 7 seed and one and done

2025 - 7 seed (likely) and ?????

That doesn’t look like progression.

Good points Adam. And the timeline is long enough that injuries don't provide an excuse for non-performance. Last year was the most disappointing, especially after such a great conclusion to Love's first season as starter. This year, injuries have clearly contributed to some of the losses - most notably Denver and Chicago.

But not winning a SB is not a good reason to move on from MLF. It's very hard to win a SB and requires a mix of talent and luck. At least the Packers can legitimately be mentioned as a SB contender at the start of each season. Even that is hard to accomplish.

I certainly haven't given up on this season, but the odds of a deep playoff are run pretty much nil. I am encouraged that all of the injured players, with the exception of Jenkins, will be returning at some point, ideally early, in the next season.

First things first. Beat the Ravens at home.

 

[gopkrs]

I mean, like our chances or not, we are in superbowl contention. It's pretty easy to say we won't win it. Those are the odds. But we are about to get into the playoffs and seem preoccupied with firing the head coach. The timing is bizarre imho

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

What I find amazing is that dead cap is the main push back on this discussion. I expected a lot more "your crazy, Love is awesome!" type reactions. Maybe Love is not really considered all that highly superior to Willis by quite a few posters on these boards?

As I said, that is a separate discussion and just a hypothetical one, since Love won't be traded/cut, due to cap. Thus, Willis won't be resigned, due to cap.

But if you want to have the "Love VS Willis" discussion go for it.

My opinion: Love is the more polished QB, with a stronger arm, understanding of the offense and defensive concepts and the more accurate passer. I do like Willis, but his legs are about the only thing that are better than Love.

 

[Magooch]

LaFleur is now in his 7th season with the Packers, having started in 2019... I wanted to take a brief look at how his record compares to other coaches who have been with their current teams for that same period. So there are only 7 other coaches in the league right now who have been with the same team for 7+ years.

Overall, Matt is 76-38-1 (0.665) in the regular season and 3-5 (.375) in the postseason. He has two NFCCG appearances in his first two years, but so far just one playoff win in the last 4 complete seasons. He has only missed the postseason once, and has just one sub-.500 season.

Kyle Shanahan has been coach of the 49ers since 2017. He has a regular season record of 81-66 (0.551) and is 8-4 (0.667) in the postseason. He has made it to the Super Bowl twice (lost to Chiefs in both) and twice made it to the NFCCG. His teams have missed the playoffs (4) times in 9 seasons (and were below 0.500 in each of these seasons).

Mike Tomlin has been with the Steelers since 2007. In the regular season, he is 192-113 (0.629) and is 8-11 in the postseason (0.421). He has won one Super Bowl (2008) and lost another (2010 ), and has one additional AFCCG appearance as well. Overall, in 19 seasons his teams have missed the playoffs 7 times but have never finished below 0.500.

John Harbaugh has been with the Ravens since 2008. He is 179-112 (0.615) in the regular season and 13-11 (0.542) in the postseason. His team won the Super Bowl in 2012, and have an additional 3 AFCCG appearances. In 18 seasons, the Ravens have missed the playoffs 5 times and finished below 0.500 twice. Currently, they are set to miss the playoffs this season and could also finish below 0.500

Sean McVay took over the Rams in 2017. He has a regular season record of 91-56 (0.619) and a postseason record of 8-5 (0.615). He has a Super Bowl win (2021) and Super Bowl loss (2018). His teams have missed the playoffs twice in 9 seasons and have one sub-.500 finish.

Andy Reid has been with the Chiefs since 2013. He has a regular season record of 149-62 (0.706) and a postseason record with KC of 18-8 (0.692). He has three Super Bowl wins (2019, 2022, 2023) and two Super Bowl losses (2020, 2024) along with an additional two AFCCG losses. In 13 seasons with the Chiefs, Reid's teams have missed the playoffs just twice and have only one sub-.500 finish (this year).

Zac Taylor has been head coach of the Bengals since 2019. He is 51-62 (0.452) in the regular season and 5-2 (0.714) in the postseason. The Bengals have only made the postseason twice in his 7 seasons, but made it to the AFCCG in one season and to the Super Bowl in the other. He has had three sub-.500 seasons.

Sean McDermott took over for the Bills in 2017. He is 97-49 (0.664) in the regular season and 7-7 (0.500) in the postseason. The Bills have yet to make a Super Bowl under McDermott, but do have two AFCCG appearances. They have only missed the playoffs once in 9 seasons, and that was their only season finishing below 0.500 as well.

 

[Magooch]

And here's how that shakes out from a big-picture view:

Regular Season Win Percentage
Andy Reid 0.706
Matt LaFleur 0.665
Sean McDermott 0.664
Mike Tomlin 0.629
Sean McVay 0.619
John Harbaugh 0.615
Kyle Shanahan 0.551
Zac Taylor 0.452

Postseason Win Percentage
Zac Taylor 0.714
Andy Reid 0.692
Kyle Shanahan 0.667
Sean McVay 0.615
John Harbaugh 0.542
Sean McDermott 0.500
Mike Tomlin 0.421
Matt LaFleur 0.375

Total Playoff Wins (Current Team)
Andy Reid 18
John Harbaugh 13
Mike Tomlin 8
Sean McVay 8
Kyle Shanahan 8
Sean McDermott 7
Zac Taylor 5
Matt LaFleur 3

Avg. Playoff Wins per Season
Andy Reid 1.38
Kyle Shanahan 0.89
Sean McVay 0.89
Sean McDermott 0.78
John Harbaugh 0.72
Zac Taylor 0.71
Matt LaFleur 0.43
Mike Tomlin 0.42

 

[OldSchool101]

Correct , do not see progression from this HC , this looks to me going backward when u r suppose to go forward

I think while there might be some truth to this, it’s also not wholly true. GB really hasn’t went backwards at least yet.
The Packers have an opportunity to finish this season going 11-5-1 which is better than any season with Jordan under Center. I wouldn’t call 11.5 or 10.5 Wins going backwards. That’s pretty much remaining stagnate as a good but not great team imo.
For me? Backing up at minimum would be we lose both of our 2 last games and we lose convincingly. I don’t call making the playoffs “going backwards”

I wouldn’t yet be apologizing for our team being led by our backup QB and leading by 2 scores at Chicago. GB beat GB and even the analysts outside of GB are saying that. They watch a good bit of football I think and some I know for fact don’t even like GB. Several reviews of the game outside of GB claim that “Chicago has no business winning that game”. Several said they already had stories written about the GB win with a backup QB.

So that tells me that our own fans can be harder on GB than outsiders who have no real allegiance. Which infers we’re talking smack because we’re sore. We’re invested in the team and letting our emotions grab the steering wheel a little bit too much. GB is nowhere close to finished as of this juncture. They also have the luxury of only needing 1 Win and with 2 injured QB’s who probably both need a week off that’s a blessing. That Detroit loss was HUGE! it was a 1 week gift. Nobody is going to care about Week15 or Week 6 or Week 2 come playoffs. Records go out the window.

GB proved to me that their D can play without Micah Parsons. THAT was ALL the chatter before this game. Chicago struggled to put 16 points up in regulation. They have one of the best Rushing Offenses in the league but GB stagnated that. Chicago had no excuses. Had our Teams not given the game away it’s a 16-9 Win and everyone is all gooey. Let’s quit acting 1 play defines a coaching career it’s a bit much imo. Toughen up.

 

[pacmaniac]

It's the regular season record that makes MLF look really good. But his three 13 win seasons all came with Rodgers. He's been unable to win more than 11 games with Love.

 

[Magooch]

It's the regular season record that makes MLF look really good. But his three 13 win seasons all came with Rodgers. He's been unable to win more than 11 games with Love.

I had thought to parse out for the post-Rodgers time as well actually. May try and crunch that if I get some spare time...

 

[OldSchool101]

All that said. Part of being a good Head Coach or GM etc is how you respond. When your starting QB goes down what are the moves you make to overcome the odds against you. How do you change the gameplan to adapt. Which players do you rest. How do you do formulating Roster Risk. Which TE do you sign. How do they fit? Which players do you sit? Which players do you activate? How many snaps? Most importantly.. do you buy into tye naysayer noise.

There’s a 100 decisions this werk that will cumulatively define our Head Coach. If GB overcomes with a pair of broken QB’s but still qualifies for postseason? To me that better than a superficial regular season record.

Great people overcome unusual odds. I could care less how we start or how we get there. Keep pressing. It’s what I love about Rashan Gary. That dude is focused! You could tell he was ticked off but the reporters asked a bunch of fan like irritating questions. I commend him for not losing his cool he was literally twitching he was so irritated. I love Rashan Gary that dude is real talk.

 

[OldSchool101]

I think that's pretty much exactly it.
1. Whelan has a HUGE leg. He's tied for the longest overall yardage in the league per punt. His "long punt" in each game this season has been 65, 55, 63, 43, 56, 63, 56, 59, 61, 63, 72(!), 55, 57 yards. Distance is no issue.
2. He probably does put a few too many in the end zone, but to some extent I think this is the result of both A.) his leg power and B.) our field position
3. We just don't punt that much to begin with. As mentioned above we are 27th in total punt attempts.
4. By extension, Green Bay is the most effective team in the league at converting 3rd downs
5. We are also generally an above-average team when it comes to converting 4th downs
6. We are often not punting in "plus territory" with many of our punts coming from DEEP in our own territory. IMO this makes it so there is not always a super feasible window to down a punt inside the 20.

For example, in the first game against the Bears, we punted from our own 26, 34, 24, 33. That's an average position of GB29, so to get it inside the opponent 20 it needs to be at minimum a 51 yard punt (which is, incidentally, right at Whelan's average. Note also that the league average yards per punt is 47.0), or at maximum a 70 yard punt, and then needs to be downed or go out of bounds somewhere in this window.

What this suggests to me is that Whelan is either "outkicking his coverage" and our coverage units aren't getting onto the ball in time to down it in that window, or he needs to work a little bit on refining placement vs power. Overall I think Whelan is a great punter, and to be honest on the whole I am not super concerned about our punt *coverage* teams. But our punt return teams are totally disgusting

Well said @Magooch. I have a profound respect for posters like you who do the work to validate opinions with concrete facts.

Well we kept Heath over Hardman. That’s really what it comes down to. Hardman was a presumed PR and he’d be a good depth option for a WR6 type player. We were very fortunate that Bo Melton flipped positions and performed, so him being a safety outlet kept that decision from being a F grade.
The fact remains. It’s unacceptable to be doing PR tryouts intra season. Our PR is literally dragging our Teams overall ranking down. It’s been at or near last in the league all season.

 

[Packers4ever]

Looking at our history of coaching terminations it takes a disastrous season to precipitate a change. Ray Rhodes was canned by Wolf because of his inept leadership although Favre almost got him into the postseason. Mike Sherman had 5 good seasons with 3 division titles, but then the 2005 collapse along with cap issues, brought about his demise. MM had only 1 losing season until his disastrous 2018 season.
So unless MLF has a losing season we should not expect him to go anywhere involuntarily. And we can always harken back to the infamous Scooter MClean Now there was a terrible head coach.

Hopefully Policy does not extend MLF since he already said that , including Gute

 

[Magooch]

I had thought to parse out for the post-Rodgers time as well actually. May try and crunch that if I get some spare time...

Okay, here you have it... Looking at the "Post-Rodgers Era". This is from 2023 onwards, and limited only to coaches who have been with their current team since at least 2023 (i.e. no first/second year coaches).

Regular Season Win Percentage
T1. Sean McDermott 0.714 (35-14)
T1. Dan Campbell 0.714 (35-14)
T1. Nick Sirianni 0.714 (35-14)
2. Andy Reid 0.653 (32-17)
3. John Harbaugh 0.646 (31-17)
4. Sean McVay 0.633 (31-18)
T5. Sean Payton 0.612 (30-19)
T5. DeMeco Ryans 0.612 (30-19)
6. Matt LaFleur 0.602 (29-19-1)
T7. Kyle Shanahan 0.592 (29-20)
T7. Mike Tomlin 0.592 (29-20)
8. Kevin O'Connell 0.571 (28-21)
9. Todd Bowles 0.531 (26-23)
T10. Shane Steichen 0.510 (25-24)
T10. Mike McDaniel 0.510 (25-24)
11. Zac Taylor 0.469 (23-26)
12. Kevin Stefanski 0.347 (17-32)
13. Jonathan Gannon 0.306 (15-34)

Postseason Win Percentage
1. Andy Reid 0.857
2. Nick Sirianni 0.800
3. Kyle Shanahan 0.667
4. Sean McDermott 0.600
T5. Dan Campbell 0.500
T5. John Harbaugh 0.500
T5. DeMeco Ryans 0.500
T6. Sean McVay 0.333
T6. Matt LaFleur 0.333
T6. Todd Bowles 0.333
T7. Jonathan Gannon, Zac Taylor, Kevin Stefanski, Sean Payton, Shane Steichen, Mike McDaniel, Kevin O'Connell, Mike Tomlin 0.000

Total Postseason Wins
1. Andy Reid 6
2. Nick Sirianni 4
3. Sean McDermott 3
T4. Kyle Shanahan 2
T4. John Harbaugh 2
T4. Dan Campbell 2
T4. DeMeco Ryans 2
T5. Matt LaFleur 1
T5. Sean McVay 1
T5. Todd Bowles 1
T6 Jonathan Gannon, Zac Taylor, Kevin Stefanski, Sean Payton, Shane Steichen, Mike McDaniel, Mike Tomlin, Kevin O'Connell

 

[Packers4ever]

Just that people react like crazy.

MLF has been there 7 seasons , the leach has been long enough

 

[Magooch]

Well said @Magooch. I have a profound respect for posters like you who do the work to validate opinions with concrete facts.

Well we kept Heath over Hardman. That’s really what it comes down to. Hardman was a presumed PR and he’d be a good depth option for a WR6 type player. We were very fortunate that Bo Melton flipped positions and performed, so him being a safety outlet kept that decision from being a F grade.
The fact remains. It’s unacceptable to be doing PR tryouts intra season.

The crux of it (and again I'm spinning off on a bit of a tangent) is that IMO philosophically we don't value ST that highly. At least not in a sense that we are likely to carry many players with a "ST-focus". We are far more likely to keep an extra WR around and say "he can probably play PR and/or KR" rather than keep a dedicated PR and/or KR guy on the roster who can't really contribute in the passing game, for example. A lot of teams are carrying guys who are pretty much ST only; we are on the opposite end where we basically want to fill out our whole ST units with just leftovers from other position groups and hope for the best. And historically we have been rather shy to afford these snaps to starting-type players too.

I can't remember if it was this year or last year but I have it in my memory how early in the season we'd trotted out a few field goal units that had a lot of rotational/backup players involved because we didn't want to risk our starters in those situations. Then we had a few kicks getting blown up and finally decided to start sending out some more starters on the OL. Ultimately it just felt very much like we didn't want to risk our "offense guys" for the sake of helping our ST units. It's stuff like that which might actually speak to Bisaccia's favor. I often wonder exactly how many players are being "released" or "approved" to get meaningful ST reps vs how many are being held out of those situations out of caution.

 

[Sanguine camper]

And here's how that shakes out from a big-picture view:

Regular Season Win Percentage
Andy Reid 0.706
Matt LaFleur 0.665
Sean McDermott 0.664
Mike Tomlin 0.629
Sean McVay 0.619
John Harbaugh 0.615
Kyle Shanahan 0.551
Zac Taylor 0.452

Postseason Win Percentage
Zac Taylor 0.714
Andy Reid 0.692
Kyle Shanahan 0.667
Sean McVay 0.615
John Harbaugh 0.542
Sean McDermott 0.500
Mike Tomlin 0.421
Matt LaFleur 0.375

Total Playoff Wins (Current Team)
Andy Reid 18
John Harbaugh 13
Mike Tomlin 8
Sean McVay 8
Kyle Shanahan 8
Sean McDermott 7
Zac Taylor 5
Matt LaFleur 3

Avg. Playoff Wins per Season
Andy Reid 1.38
Kyle Shanahan 0.89
Sean McVay 0.89
Sean McDermott 0.78
John Harbaugh 0.72
Zac Taylor 0.71
Matt LaFleur 0.43
Mike Tomlin 0.42

Ouch! Since moving on from Rodgers, MLF has one playoff win which is right in line with his average. Great comparison.

 

[rmontro]

Ouch! Since moving on from Rodgers, MLF has one playoff win which is right in line with his average. Great comparison.

That jumped out at me too. Although to be fair, that only covers two seasons with Love - hopefully we'll add to that total this year. The sole win was that big blowout that we won in Dallas in Love's first year as a starter.

 

[AKCheese]

The post Rodgers post season era? All 2 years of it? Last years loss waz to the eventual Super Bowl Champion who totally DOMINATED the Chiefs. Im not a huge MLF fan but trying to evaluate based on this is dumb imo

 

[Sanguine camper]

The post Rodgers post season era? All 2 years of it? Last years loss waz to the eventual Super Bowl Champion who totally DOMINATED the Chiefs. Im not a huge MLF fan but trying to evaluate based on this is dumb imo

I also think it makes sense to evaluate the entire record. 3 playoff wins so far isn't impressive IMO given that he started with such a talented team in 2019.

Gute has blown his share of high draft picks but has restocked talented players to the roster by all avenues including free agency trades and finding gems on other team's practice squads since MLF was hired.

In evaluating MLF, a key question is have the Packers played beneath their talent level? If not, then the playoff debacles have to be chalked up to insufficient talent and Gute is the problem. I tend to think that Gute deserves some criticism but is generally a pretty good GM.

 

[milani]

The post Rodgers post season era? All 2 years of it? Last years loss waz to the eventual Super Bowl Champion who totally DOMINATED the Chiefs. Im not a huge MLF fan but trying to evaluate based on this is dumb imo

That becomes a Jerry Jones knee jerker. Works for Dallas. Not everywhere else.

 

[Magooch]

I don't think anyone is suggesting we should evaluate LaFleur exclusively by his "Post-Rodgers" record, either. But it does lend meaningful context with regards to how he compares to his peers. We have also heard for quite some time how LaFleur has had a record-setting (at one point) regular season win percentage. But taking into account Rodgers' last season and the "post-Rodgers" time, a bit of the luster has worn off there, too.
He is currently 8th amongst active head coaches for regular-season win percentage (current team) and in the last three seasons there are at least 8 coaches who have had a better regular-season record than LaFleur.
Similarly, there are 7 coaches who have a better playoff record than LaFleur during his whole Packers tenure (including Rodgers), and 7 who have a better playoff record than LaFleur in the "post-Rodgers" time as well.
And every coach in the league who has played in as many or more playoff games as LaFleur has also WON more playoff games than LaFleur (even Zac Taylor has wound up with more career postseason wins in less games played).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to absolutely rag on the guy. As I've said plenty of times I think there's a lot of good he does and he would VERY quickly find a job if we let him go. But some of the claims we have heard recently and/or in the past - that we wouldn't be able to find someone who would be as successful in the regular season, that we wouldn't be able to find someone who'd be better in the playoffs, that no one else could've done more with what he was given - I think are starting to appear a bit more hollow.

 

[Magooch]

In evaluating MLF, a key question is have the Packers played beneath their talent level? If not, then the playoff debacles have to be chalked up to insufficient talent and Gute is the problem. I tend to think that Gute deserves some criticism but is generally a pretty good GM.

That's kind of how it boils down for me too. I think this is a simple and effective heuristic....that probably not a ton of folks are going to be eager to give a straight answer to.

Simply stated:
1. Have LaFleur's teams generally played above their talent level?
2. Have LaFleur's teams generally played right at their talent level?
3. Have LaFleur's teams generally played below their talent level?

Big-picture, of course.

Game to game there have been some examples from each. When I look at the totality of it - the whole body of work - I don't think I can conclude the answer is "1". Whether it is "2" or "3", I'm not sure.

 

[adambr2]

The NFCCG at home against Tampa, if he never gets to the big one, will always be the one that got away for MLF. That was it. We should’ve had that one. Hurts.

Never in my life have I ever figured out how, in a situation where all we needed to do was funnel all the action to the interior of the field of play and protect the end zone and sidelines, did we end up in Cover 1 with Kevin King alone on an island. Inexplicable.

 

[Magooch]

The NFCCG at home against Tampa, if he never gets to the big one, will always be the one that got away for MLF. That was it. We should’ve had that one. Hurts.

Never in my life have I ever figured out how, in a situation where all we needed to do was funnel all the action to the interior of the field of play and protect the end zone and sidelines, did we end up in Cover 1 with Kevin King alone on an island. Inexplicable.

I agree, but unfortunately that's exactly what I mean when I point to the kind of general malaise and "same old problems" that have consistently seemed to plague us in the "LaFleur Era". Just seems like far, far too often we lose focus at exactly the most inopportune moment(s) and often struggle to recover.