Matt LaFleur Continues To Showcase His Brilliance

When the Green Bay Packers fired Mike McCarthy on December 2nd, 2018, general manager Brian Gutekunst and team president Mark Murphy already had their prerequisites in mind for their next head coach.

They clearly knew that they had to find a head coach who could revitalize Aaron Rodgers, get the team back to the playoffs, and reinvigorate a locker room culture that had grown stale and weary.

There were some big shoes to fill, for sure. Mike McCarthy departed Titletown, USA with a Super Bowl XLV victory, four NFC Championship Game appearances, six NFC North division titles, and he won 61.8 percent of his games.

Towards the end of McCarthy's tenure with Green Bay, however, his relationship with Aaron Rodgers deteriorated rapidly, and there were some reportedly long-festering issues between the two. Green Bay was ready to find its 15th full-time head coach.

Matt LaFleur Checked All Of The Boxes When He Arrived

Matt LaFleur is yet another descendant of the venerable Sean McVay coaching tree, an amalgamation of coaches that includes Zac Taylor and Kevin O'Connell. LaFleur was the offensive coordinator of the 2017 Rams and 2018 Titans; the former ranked first overall in total offense and turned Jared Goff into a superstar.

When he was hired right after New Year's Day in 2019, there were questions about how LaFleur and incumbent two-time MVP Aaron Rodgers would coalesce, but any reservations about their neophyte relationship were quelled quickly.

Between 2019 and 2021, with the new dynamic duo in town, Rodgers won two consecutive MVPs (2020 and 2021) and was better than every quarterback not named Patrick Mahomes II.

Coach LaFleur Has Never Gotten The Respect He Deserves

Despite a historic start to his head coaching career, Matt LaFleur has not yet earned a well-deserved Coach of the Year Award.

That fact is blasphemous, considering he has won more games than all but two other coaches since 2019.

During the first five seasons of his time patrolling the sidelines for the Packers, from 2019-2023, LaFleur finished third, fifth, second, did not get any votes in 2022, and finished ninth in 2023.

Early detractors pointed out the fact that LaFleur inherited Aaron Rodgers, but what they failed to acknowledge is that Rodgers had clearly regressed in 2018, the year before LaFleur was hired.

In 2024, Matt LaFleur Has Been The Best NFL Head Coach

LaFleur and his staff have been esoteric about the status of Jordan Love, who narrowly avoided a season-ending injury back in Week One against the Eagles.

In the meantime, over the past two weeks, LaFleur has turned former Titans castoff Malik Willis into one of the most efficient and productive quarterbacks in football . That includes some massive highlight reels from Green Bay's Week Three victory against Willis's former team and LaFleur's former employer.

Against the vaunted Tennessee defense, Malik Willis ran for 73 yards, which was the most by a Packers quarterback since Don Majkowski in 1990. Much of Willis's yardage came on intricately concocted read option plays.

What else did Malik Willis accomplish in just two weeks?

• orchestrated first-half efforts against Indianapolis and Tennessee that each produced over 260 yards of total offense, the first time for the team since 2014

  
  

• posted a passer rating above 120 in both games, becoming just the fifth Packers quarterback to ever do so

• has posted the sixth-most expected points added among all quarterbacks since Week Two

There are several other feats accomplished by Malik Willis, but the bottom line is this: Matt LaFleur has crafted brilliant game plans without the team's franchise quarterback being under center. Green Bay is very much in the conversation for the best team in the league right now.

There Is Much Work To Be Done, But LaFleur Is Always Ready

The Packers have one of the most difficult remaining schedules , but Coach LaFleur and Co. will not blink. Their season continues against familiar NFC North foe Minnesota, coming at a time when Sam Darnold has been one of the best passers this season .

LaFleur should be equipped for the Vikings, though. He to get his hire for defensive coordinator right. After all, he had already gone through two defensive play-callers in his first five seasons, and a defense that has seven first-round picks had been underachieving and underperforming.

So far this season, rookie defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley, who departed his head coaching job at Boston College to come to Green Bay, has built a ball-hawking, efficient unit.

Collectively, through three games, Green Bay's defense has attained the following ranks:

• nine takeaways, which leads the entire league

• already generated as many interceptions through three games as it did all of last year

• 71.6 passer rating allowed - seventh lowest

• third-down conversion rate of 28.13 percent, the sixth lowest

• the ninth-highest sack rate (9.73%)

• ninth-lowest EPA per play allowed (-0.18)

• 11 sacks

Look for Coach LaFleur to finally hoist his first Coach of the Year Award if this keeps up - and perhaps hoist a much more coveted piece of hardware in February, too.