Packer Central

Packers’ Matt LaFleur Among Favorites To Be First NFL Coach Fired

With the Green Bay Packers’ playoff aspirations getting longer by the week, is coach Matt LaFleur on the hot seat? Yes, at least according to one sportsbook.

Bill Huber

Packers’ Matt LaFleur Among Favorites To Be First NFL Coach Fired
Packers’ Matt LaFleur Among Favorites To Be First NFL Coach Fired /
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – Entering Year 5 as coach of the Green Bay Packers, Matt LaFleur had fashioned a regular-season record of 47-19.

Among all coaches in NFL history with 50 games on the resume, LaFleur’s .712 winning percentage was the fourth-best all-time. Who was ahead of him? Guy Chamberlin (.784), John Madden (.750) and Vince Lombardi (.738). Hall of Famers, one and all.

This season, the Packers are 2-5. Nobody thought the transition from Aaron Rodgers to Jordan Love would be easy, but the team’s four-game losing streak shows a team that has made little, if any, tangible progress.

At BetOnline, LaFleur is +650 to be the first coach fired this season. Only the Las Vegas Raiders’ Josh McDaniels (+200), who is coming off a dismal loss at the Detroit Lions and can’t get All-Pro receiver Davante Adams the ball, has longer odds.

The Washington Commanders’ Ron Rivera (+250) is next, followed by the Chicago Bears’ Matt Eberflus (+320), LaFleur and the Los Angeles Chargers’ Brandon Staley (+1000).

The Packers are headed the wrong way – a fact that goes beyond this year’s struggles.

During his first three seasons on the job, LaFleur led the Packers to seasons of 13-3 and the NFC Championship Game in 2019, 13-3, the No. 1 seed and the NFC Championship Game in 2020 and 13-4 and the No. 1 seed in 2021. While the Packers stumbled in the playoffs each year – including homefield losses in 2020 and 2021 – at least LaFleur put the Packers in position. In fact, the Packers became the first team in NFL history with three consecutive seasons of 13-plus wins.

Following the offseason trade of Davante Adams, the 2022 Packers started 4-8 before a late-season rally that fell short in another homefield loss, this time to Detroit, in Week 18.

Matt LaFleur
Matt LaFleur and the Packers have lost four in a row :: Photo by Mark Hoffman/USA Today Sports Images

Following the offseason trade of Rodgers, the 2023 Packers started 2-1 but have crumbled.

From Game 4 through Game 7, Green Bay is 28th with 15.0 points per game and 29th in point differential (minus-34).

It’s not all Love’s fault. However, after throwing six touchdowns vs. zero interceptions in the first two games, Love among the 34 quarterbacks with at least 80 attempts since the start of Week 3 ranks:

- 34th in interceptions (eight)

- 33rd in passer rating (66.6)

- Tied for 32nd in completion percentage (58.2)

- Tied for 31st in yards per attempt (6.0)

When general manager Brian Gutekunst went out on a limb and drafted Love in the first round in 2020, it was up to the coaching staff to get him ready to be a starter. Love’s last five games don’t paint a pretty picture, with the obvious caveat that Gutekunst didn’t give him a reliable veteran receiver.

The wild card in any franchise-shifting decisions is Packers President Mark Murphy. He’ll reach the mandatory retirement age of 70 on July 13, 2025. If the team continues a downward spiral, would he stand pat with Gutekunst and LaFleur and let his successor make his own hires? Or would he make a bold move at coach and/or general manager to make his final mark on the franchise?

That’s a lot of looking down the road. LaFleur will continue his search for answers that have eluded him the past few weeks. Youth isn’t an excuse – and hasn’t been – he said.

“Really have not brought that up in front of our team I think even from Day 1,” he said. “It’s our circumstance. It is what it is. The expectation is whoever’s wearing that ‘G’ on the side of their helmet that’s out on the field, is that we go execute at a championship level, and we’re just not there.”

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.

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