Matt LaFleur doesn’t get to escape January just because a new season has arrived.
The Packers are back, hope is back, and the calendar has reset. But the memory that still hangs over Green Bay is the same one that reshaped the conversation around LaFleur after last season’s collapse.
Six and a half minutes. That’s all it took for the Packers’ season to unravel in a way that felt stunning, crushing, and impossible to ignore.
What followed was a noisy offseason. Jordan Love took criticism he didn’t deserve.
The Bears got fed a wave of outsized hype. Caleb Williams ended up on the Madden cover.
And LaFleur, fairly or not, came out of it viewed differently - less as a proven winner and more as a coach suddenly under the microscope.
Green Bay moved fast to shut down any real speculation about LaFleur’s future, giving him a new deal. But outside perception has already shifted, and that’s the part he can’t control.
He’s now being talked about like a coach who needs to prove himself all over again. That may be too harsh, but it’s easy to understand why it’s happening.
Because the numbers say one thing, and January says another.
LaFleur has won 76 games in his first seven seasons, a total topped only by George Seifert in NFL history. He’s averaging 10.9 wins a year.
His career winning percentage sits 16th all-time and fourth among active coaches. Anyone trying to sell the idea that he doesn’t know how to win is missing the point completely.
He’s also been outstanding with quarterbacks. Aaron Rodgers won two MVPs in four seasons under LaFleur.
Jordan Love has developed into one of the NFC’s best passers. Malik Willis got his career back on track in Green Bay.
Even Kyle McCord, after being cut loose by the Philadelphia Eagles following a rough rookie year, played so well after one offseason with LaFleur that the Miami Dolphins traded a sixth-round pick to get him.
That’s elite-level quarterback work. The kind you’d put right next to Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan.
If the awards were based only on September through December, LaFleur would already have the résumé of a legend. But that’s not how this works.
The playoffs matter, and that’s where his record keeps dragging the whole conversation back down. His postseason mark is 3-6, and that number looms over everything else.
He has had his moments, sure. Jordan Love threw three touchdowns in the Packers’ 48-32 win over the Cowboys in 2023.
Green Bay also beat McVay’s Rams 32-18 in 2020. Those are real wins, and they matter.
But so do the wounds. Three playoff losses to the 49ers.
A missed chance against Tom Brady’s Buccaneers. And then last January’s disaster at Soldier Field, the one that still defines the mood around this team more than it should.
That’s why the talk around LaFleur has turned into the familiar stuff - “put up or shut up,” questions about whether he knows how to win when it counts, doubts about the maturity and discipline of his teams when the pressure spikes. Some of that criticism lands.
Some of it goes too far. NFL reaction tends to swing hard, and LaFleur has been on the wrong end of that swing.
Still, the truth is simpler than the noise. He’s a very good coach.
An elite offensive mind. A quarterback’s best friend.
And while the biggest test won’t come until January, the first chance to start changing the story comes in Minnesota. Week 1 won’t erase what happened eight months ago.
It won’t silence every critic. But it can be the first step in LaFleur’s redemption arc, a chance to start pushing back against the January pain that still shadows everything in Green Bay.
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For Green Bay, it only sharpens the contrast inside the NFC North. While the Packers continue to project stability at quarterback, Minnesota is left juggling names and depth-chart labels in a spot where clarity matters most. The division race can change quickly, but this is one more storyline that leaves the Vikings looking like they are already playing catch-up. [Read more 🡒]