Yup, Packers would win 9/10 against Cleveland this year... unfortunately that game was the one for the Browns.
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OldSchool101
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I like it! Oddly I feel that way about Chicago and they are a very good team now. I think GB would Win 6 of 10 matchups on neutral territory and 55/100 at Soldier field. Bump it a little higher if we had news that Kraft and Parsons both returned and were suited up. I just think Chicago overachieved a little bit and we made them look like Super Bowl Champs. I see them as a 10-7 Wildcard team. Now it’s possible they improve some in 2026, but idk about that. The chances are Chicago won’t have 194 4Qtr comebacks next season. It’s just not sustainable. They’ll more likely be that good, scrappy Wildcard level opponent.
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GreenBaySlacker
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I completely disagree. Lafleur has a 2/1 win/loss ratio to start his head coaching career. You are not looking at the big picture....
Also, this division is tough as nails. All of them gunning for GB. This end of the year was disappointing. Parsons injury was such a devastating mental blow. From steamrolling our way to #1 seed, to losing 5 straight, including two heart breakers to da bearz.... Nobody could've predicted that.... We should've won it all this year.
Personally. I think we can come back, looking mediocre without parsons, Kraft, Wyatt to start the season.... And bring those guys in for a playoff run....
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Yea their comeback to go to overtime against the Rams was legendary, following this unreal season for them. Then they choked in overtime and blew it. Lol.
You know that hurt. Went from divine intervention to stuck in traffic. Lol.
But I agree. The Bears miracle comebacks are definitely Not sustainable.
No one is gunning for Green Bay. I don’t know why people say that. Maybe the Bears are. Other than that, we haven’t been division champs since 2021…not sure why we think we have a target on our backs any more than any other team with similar success. It seems like more of an outdated myth than anything, kind of like the “Lambeau mystique” of how hard we supposedly are to beat at home.
The 2/1 win loss ratio for Lafleur is looking at the big picture, but not the relevant part of the picture. What Matt Lafleur accomplished with Aaron Rodgers does nothing to increase our chances of winning in 2026. In the last 4 seasons, he’s just over .500. You’d like to see your team trending up, not down.
The “no one could have predicted this” and “we should’ve won it all this year.” Man. We’d roll our eyes at that if it came from any other fanbase, and rightfully so. Making excuses for why we should have won the Super Bowl when we have won one single playoff game and haven’t even proven we can get to our own conference championship the last four seasons is exactly how we often get labeled as a fanbase for walking around with a sense of entitlement and superiority.
One thing is for sure, we can “shoulda coulda woulda but next year” with the best of them every single January.
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GreenBaySlacker
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There's still a certain dominance GB holds on the north after favre and Rodgers. Each team taking a turn at a NFC north title. Definitely on the edge of losing that target on the back. But I'd say in that transition to Love, the teams who won were battling GB for that spot.
We definitely have lost the Lambeau mystique. Its been gone a while now. And if GB doesn't take that step up in Lafleurs next tour of duty, and secure a few NFC North titles. We might lose that mystique too... But it's not gone yet, imo.
The missed kicks. Any of them, and we win or go to over time.... That's like a Gary anderson moment. Unusual, and took out a team that could shoulda woulda went all the way and won it. IMO.
We definitely have lost the Lambeau mystique. Its been gone a while now. And if GB doesn't take that step up in Lafleurs next tour of duty, and secure a few NFC North titles. We might lose that mystique too... But it's not gone yet, imo.
The missed kicks. Any of them, and we win or go to over time.... That's like a Gary anderson moment. Unusual, and took out a team that could shoulda woulda went all the way and won it. IMO.
tynimiller
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False I got Lions friends that witnessed their injury decimated team somehow cling to life not this past season but the prior one...and they were 1000% correct.
Niner friends of mine saying it now, absolutely correct.
There are normal issues, injuries and one off bad games that every team has - absolutely. But then there are times where it is anything but typical issues.
Also MLF flipped a 6 win team (that Rodgers played in 16 games for) to three straight 13 win teams...
OldSchool101
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Yes. It’s one thing to get lucky and win 13 games. It’s another thing to win 13 games three years in a row. That reflects favorably on the Coaching Staff. No surprise it was our Offense that carried those years. Our D finally didn’t hurt us, but Teams were atrocious.
OldSchool101
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We saw the effect of 1 Starter returning with Watson this year. There’s a very real chance we could get all 3 players back staggered. My guess is 2 will be back in the month of October. Another will be back by Thanksgiving area.
In the meantime we have to pretend like none are coming back. We need to get better Production from Banks, Belton, Morgan, Luke, Barryn, Dobbs.. Plus get a couple guys back from PUP IR etc. so we can get 1 or 2 involved regularly. Oliver, Williams, Lloyd, Glover etc. that’s alot of guys just sitting on the sofa.
Ok, so the moral of the story is, any really good roster that stays totally healthy, has a really good shot. Well, duh. That doesn’t guarantee anything. Did losing Parsons and Kraft hurt us? Of course it did. Would having them have guaranteed that the things we need to go right in even one singular playoff game would have went our way enough for us to win against really good teams, much less in 3-4 straight games against really good teams? Absolutely not.
Also, what relevancy does the things that Matt Lafleur did back in 2019-21 have to do with the present day Green Bay Packers?
Mike McCarthy flipped a 4 win Packer mess (that Brett Favre played in 16 games in) into a Super Bowl champion in two less seasons than Matt Lafleur has had with the Packers. What relevancy does that have years later?
Matt Lafleur is going into his 4th season with Jordan Love. Exactly how many seasons does he get to ride the accomplishments of his first 3 seasons with Rodgers?
milani
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Well, our one call to glory in 2025, if nothing else, was beating Detroit twice. They were 15-2 the previous season. Shows this team could accomplish a lot when close to healthy.
Nothing wrong with acknowledging Matt did a great job with those teams but at the same time I’m not sure it really has any relevance today. I mean that’s basically a completely different team and “generation” at this point.
I think we also all understand that at some point that can’t keep carrying him any further. I mean, hypothetically let’s say we keep Matt for 25 more seasons and we’re consistently a one-and-done playoff team. (Obviously this is exaggerated for sake of discussion)
Would anyone be saying “give him some credit, 30 years ago he had three 13-win seasons in a row!” Obviously not (or at least I would hope not)!
So we all understand that at some point you have to draw a line and can’t keep relying on that as his crowning achievement and/or evidence of coaching acumen and/or justification to continue on as GB HC. In this way the only disagreement is where said “line” is drawn. Some seem more eager to disregard those results, others more apt to continue giving credence to them…
as I said above I’m not really sure how much bearing that has on our current situation. For instance I don’t think Ben Johnson and the Bears are remotely intimidated by Matt’s previous 13-win seasons. As it stands all we can really conclude with any confidence is that A.) Matt can produce a 13-win #1 seed when he has the best player in the league at the helm and B.) the verdict is out and results are more mixed when he doesn’t have the league’s best player at QB. beyond that I think it’s largely speculative
I think we also all understand that at some point that can’t keep carrying him any further. I mean, hypothetically let’s say we keep Matt for 25 more seasons and we’re consistently a one-and-done playoff team. (Obviously this is exaggerated for sake of discussion)
Would anyone be saying “give him some credit, 30 years ago he had three 13-win seasons in a row!” Obviously not (or at least I would hope not)!
So we all understand that at some point you have to draw a line and can’t keep relying on that as his crowning achievement and/or evidence of coaching acumen and/or justification to continue on as GB HC. In this way the only disagreement is where said “line” is drawn. Some seem more eager to disregard those results, others more apt to continue giving credence to them…
as I said above I’m not really sure how much bearing that has on our current situation. For instance I don’t think Ben Johnson and the Bears are remotely intimidated by Matt’s previous 13-win seasons. As it stands all we can really conclude with any confidence is that A.) Matt can produce a 13-win #1 seed when he has the best player in the league at the helm and B.) the verdict is out and results are more mixed when he doesn’t have the league’s best player at QB. beyond that I think it’s largely speculative
OldSchool101
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One thing I wasn’t aware of until I checked. Jordan Love had improved his QB and Passer rating in each successive season. The most amazing part is his INT % dropped and his Receptions % went up over 65%. Those were 2 of the Top complaints about Jordan leading up to the 2025 season. The trying to force it has seemingly disappeared. He went on full display at Chicago with 323 yards and 4 TD’s. So we have a continual riser at QB and one of his best performances was Wildcard Weekend.
Jordan’s 16 game total was
3,703 Yards
27 TD’s
6 INT
65% Comp
102% Passer
Had someone gave us a peak into the future and we saw Jordans’ 16 game totals, I’m guessing most of us would’ve been very excited. Sometimes we look to what didn’t work and admittedly there were some areas to fix and no question we need to address that. Yet the most important area of a Championship team is who’s under Center. After 3 years of watching Jordan grow, we can now say we definitively have plenty of talent at QB. Also Jordan is still relatively early in his career. There’s a very real chance we have not seen Love’s best season yet. That’s something to build around.
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GreenBaySlacker
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That's true.
I have a few players I hope to see take that next step. Belton is definitely one of them.
Cliche, but Golden and Savion.
I'd love to see LVN put together a full double digit sack season.
I personally think Musgrave, getting #1 TE reps until Kraft returns, can show he is still 1b on a pro bowl level... Curious what he will cost?
Reed in a contract year, fighting Golden for reps.... He could be electric. They* could be electric....
I'm still holding hope for Marshawn Lloyd.... His first two seasons have been disasters. But I looked at one of his highlight films last night .. the dude is a weapon. And it's so or die next spring. I think he will come out blazing.... Fingers crossed.
GreenBaySlacker
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I came off as sounding like we will be mediocre without parsons, Wyatt, and Kraft.... That was more of a worst case scenario.... Honestly ,like someone said. I think we could come in without those guys and be leading the division still.... Then get them to come back for a playoff run, putting us over the top....
I have no qualms with our QB. I do think you can win a championship with a Jordan Love.
However, I think there’s a difference between a coach who can turn a lousy team into a very good team and a coach that can take a great team and turn it into a championship team.
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Yes, having the best coach in NFL history would certainly have made a difference over the amazingness that was MM's ability to convince people that he wasn't the problem for the last five years of his time in Green Bay. So, who's the next best coach in NFL history that you know how to find?
milani
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I would put Andy Reid up there. But pundits will say that his teams were gifted with so much talent. I do not buy that.
That's true, but all those comebacks are an indication that Ben Johnson is good at making adjustments during the game.
That one's always a bit of a conundrum.
On one hand you have a guy like Matt, who in my estimation is amongst the best in the league at his *initial* game planning and approach. But I often don't think he adjusts that well when teams punch back, or when his initial plan doesn't work as intended... How many games did we have this year (even wins!) where it felt like we went up early and then had to hang on for dear life in the second half and just hope we'd built up enough of a "cushion" in the first?
And then there's guys like Ben Johnson on the other hand. He DOES seem to adjust well, and usually gets a good response from his team...BUT is also often put into those situations because of bad early-decision making. Like, the Bears/Johnson (and by extension Caleb) have been in situations where they have to make the right adjustments and secure a 4Q comeback precisely because they didn't manage the earlier periods well. Similar to his former team in the Lions, we saw so many instances here where Ben made some questionable 4th down calls and if he'd just taken points in many of these situations they just would've won, no need for 4Q theatrics. It's similar to how I've seen all these folks talk about how fantastic Caleb is in the 4Q, and there's some truth to that, but a lot of the times he's also had to have been Superman in 4Q because he had like 70 passing yards and a passer rating of 40 in Q1-Q3.
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I’ve been critical of MLF but obviously he’s our Coach for a good bit. He’s got to get a good DC and finally figure out what needs to be done at Special Teams. Deep playoff teams RARELY have success with BOTTOM 5-10 rated “Teams” units. It’s a VERY important aspect of an overall Roster and imperative for getting off the “good” plateau.
We can’t afford to go cheap in how we view Teams. Last year it was excuses after excuses after bringing in a Probowl level PR. Hardman is more successful at PR than Randall Cobb and that’s in large proven quantity sample. Yet we all act like 1 muffed punt in a preseason game negated a career?
So we turn to family favorited Heath or Melton as a debate for WR6? Not only was that debate completely pointless because Bo wasn’t ultimately playing WR, but how did that work out? Heath combined for 86 yards and 0 TD’s. Heath averaged 2 Teams snaps per contest and 1 tackle so we could feel good about WR6. Next time let’s improve Special Teams I don’t want to hear the first thing about Malik Heath unless he average 25+ on KR or 10+ on Punt return or becomes the leading tackler on teams with 10+ tackles. WR6 better should be at or near Teams#1.
No it’s not about any personal hatred for Malik Heath. It’s about my hatred for ignoring the importance of who we field for Teams and who is Supervising that aspect. It needs accountability and better talent and if that means scrubbing our CB6 or WR6 Or QB6 for that matter, then Matt needs to Get it handled yesterday.
#32 ranked PR. It’s Unacceptable, undeniable an undebatable.
New England averages 17.3 per return. Green Bay. 5.6 per. Whatever we did was opposite of success. We need to stop ignoring it. If needed go outside and sign 1-2 FA teams players plus spend a pair of 7th rounders finding the very best athletes from college, specifically at Teams. So be it.
Also we ranked #23 in Special Teams penalty count and #29 ranked in most Teams lost yardage (-206). Why?
The Head Coach should be held accountable for “at or near worst ranking” with plans in place and daily monitoring those aspects. You don’t Win with undisciplined Teams units. That responsibility falls squarely on Matt to approach Brian and tell him what you need or don’t need personnel wise. He should be in constant communication with his Coordinator so no, it’s not just Rich’s fault, it’s both. More leaning the guy who heads up coaching.
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Yeah, the combination of MLF's inability to adjust and his tendency to get conservative when he gets a lead sets up a perfect storm for these kind of comebacks. In that respect, we're the perfect opponent for Chicago to pull of their late game heroics. And apparently their gameplan also wears down defenses, while ours seem to get gassed or lose focus late. Not sure what that is about. Shoot, just chasing Caleb Williams around probably wears people down alone.
mradtke66
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I don't think this problem and solution line up. Our coverage units are average (kick) and excellent (punt.). A pair of 7th rounders doesn't necessarily fix our return units, which are bringing down our averages. To fix them, we need to get a returner or two. And then find room for them on the roster.
Got sources of those rankings? I don't have thoughts here yet other than wanting to see how far apart 1st to 16th to 32nd is.
OldSchool101
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NFL.com (average punt return)
Nflpenalties.com (by phase such as Teams)
Offensive, Defensive, and Special Teams Penalties - 2025 - View By Total
All penalties commited during the 2025 season broken down by offense, defense, and special teams, viewed by total
www.nflpenalties.com
OldSchool101
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NFL.com (average punt return)
Nflpenalties.com (by phase such as Teams)
Offensive, Defensive, and Special Teams Penalties - 2025 - View By Total
All penalties commited during the 2025 season broken down by offense, defense, and special teams, viewed by total
What drives me mad about Special Teams is the Gross Net per infraction. Meaning it only shows up as -10. Yet when you advance the ball to the GB30 and the infraction happened when the returner was at the 20 yardline? You go to the Gb10 instead of the GB30 for a -20 net. The really drastic ones are on a 40+ yard return and it nets us -25 or -35 yards. I’d rather not have a blocker and let me fight for +15 yards from the GB5. Just leave me as a KR all alone I’d prefer that someone erasing my production.
As far as the 7th Rounders I’m exaggerating. But maybe I’m not. You can often go get a very good LB or TE or FB or Bigger DB that’s fast and physical and a good Gunner of good blocker or good tackler or a good mix.
Nick Niemann, Ben Stills, Christian Welch, Dallin Leavitt, Tariq Carpenter, Ty Summers. The list goes on and on as far as guys who are valuable Players and make Special Teams a career. They can play depth pieces but they are 100% plugged in Teams.
So it’s not an insult at all to schedule a #249 type draft pick primarily for Teams. Matter of fact I’d say more often than not that’s where 7th Rounders get put for awhile.
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