GREEN BAY, Wis. – Ranking Matt LaFleur among NFL head coaches is a challenging proposition. From one perspective, he’s won with such regularity that it’s impossible to not consider him one of the best in the business. On the other hand, his lack of playoff success can lead to questioning of his credentials.
At Pro Football Network, Brandon Austin ranked the NFL’s 32 coaches. LaFleur checked in at No. 9.
Why so high?
Because, he wrote, LaFleur “has quietly built one of the most consistent coaching résumés in the league. Since taking over in 2019, he’s led the Green Bay Packers to five playoff appearances in six seasons.” Including last year, he’s led the team to four seasons of 11-plus wins.
“You have to commend LaFleur for how he’s navigated the transition from a Hall of Famer in (Aaron) Rodgers to a young, unproven quarterback in Jordan Love,” he continued. “The shocking playoff blowout of the Dallas Cowboys in 2023 was undoubtedly a highlight moment of the coach-QB duo’s time together thus far. Green Bay underwent a significant shift, and LaFleur made sure the foundation was solid.”
Amazingly, of the 204 coaches in NFL history with at least 50 games on the ledger, LaFleur ranks 13th all-time with a .670 winning percentage. Of the 12 coaches ahead of LaFleur, eight are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. LaFleur’s winning percentage is better than that of Hall of Famer Tony Dungy and future Hall of Famers Andy Reid and Bill Belichick.
With a 67-33 record, he’s 34 games over .500. That’s tied with Hall of Famer Hank Stram and ahead of Hall of Famers Bill Walsh and Marv Levy, among many others.
A few days before last year’s Week 18 game against Chicago, with LaFleur getting ready to coach his 100th regular-season game, he ranked 12th all-time in winning percentage.
“OK,” LaFleur said when relayed that fact. “That will matter someday probably to me but not right now. I just want to keep winning.”
LaFleur’s Packers lost that game. Then, they lost in the wild-card round to the Eagles.
In his first two seasons on the job, LaFleur led the Packers to NFC Championship Games in 2019 and 2020. But his team went one-and-done as the No. 1 seed in 2021, failed to make the playoffs in 2022, fell a game short of the NFC title game in 2023 and went one-and-done against last year.
Without a Super Bowl on his resume, LaFleur isn’t considered to be on the same level as the Chiefs’ Reid, the Rams’ Sean McVay, the Ravens’ John Harbaugh and the Eagles’ Nick Sirianni, who occupy the top four spots in the PFN rankings.
“Being good isn’t enough anymore,” Austin wrote. “At some point, you have to level up, and that’s the crossroads the Packers are currently sitting at. The NFC is tough, and while this team has been in the mix, it hasn’t made any real noise when it matters. Time will tell if LaFleur can raise the ceiling for Green Bay.”
Nobody needs to tell LaFleur. Packers fans are restless, with 14 Super Bowl champions crowned since Green Bay won its last Lombardi Trophy in 2010.
“Yeah, but it’s not from them,” LaFleur said of the pressure. “I feel it more internally, just making sure you’re doing everything you can. It’s hard. It’s hard enough to win in this league. Once you get to the dance, it’s like March Madness. I mean, anything can happen.
“And, unfortunately, we’ve been on the wrong side of it. Probably our two best years, ’20 and ’21, those were really, really disappointing moments when you felt like you had a real chance at it. And I think even last year, after we went to Dallas and did what we did, and, man, I just thought we were playing our best, and I thought our team had a looseness about it and there was no expectation.”
