Matt LaFleur’s run in Green Bay may not be over, but the early numbers are starting to look ugly when stacked against the Packers coaches who came before him.
Since Vince Lombardi left the sideline, 10 different men have held the job in Green Bay. Only two of them won titles, and every one of those tenures ended badly.
That part is almost baked into the Packers’ coaching history. LaFleur hasn’t reached the end yet, but after eight seasons - seven full ones and one partial - he’s already sitting in some uncomfortable company.
One of the most striking markers is the championship drought. LaFleur is tied with Bart Starr for the longest-tenured Packers coach never to win a title.
Starr gets a little extra grace because of what he accomplished as a player, but the coaching resume still stands on its own. And on that front, LaFleur’s profile isn’t holding up especially well.
Using Pro Football Reference data, the comparison was made against the other nine post-Lombardi Packers coaches by looking at the first three games of what would become their final seasons. The categories tracked were wins, points scored, points allowed, first downs gained, total offensive yards, total passing yards, total rushing yards, turnovers, first downs allowed, total yards allowed, passing yards allowed, rushing yards allowed, takeaways, and penalties.
LaFleur finished worst among those coaches in three of those areas: points allowed, rushing yards, and penalties.
The points-allowed number stands out because it doesn’t always tell a clean defensive story. If the offense gives the ball away in bad spots or can’t stay on the field, the defense ends up paying for it.
That’s been a theme for Green Bay already. In Week 1, Packers turnovers deep in their own territory helped the Vikings score touchdowns on drives of just one and 14 yards.
Minnesota also scored on a 28-yard drive after a big kickoff return by the Packers’ special teams. In Week 2, another fumble deep in Green Bay territory set up a Jets field goal after a drive of only four yards.
That same issue showed up again Thursday night against the Falcons. The Packers had the ball 10 times, and five of those drives lasted four plays or fewer.
One of them was technically a four-play series only because the fourth play was a blocked field goal, which counts for charting purposes. Strip that away, and it was really five three-and-outs.
The result was a defense forced back onto the field over and over, and Bijan Robinson took advantage as the Packers wore down.
The rushing total is another problem, and this one cuts right to the heart of LaFleur’s identity. The idea that he’s built a run-first offense has always been overstated, but his teams have still been expected to have a strong ground game. That has not been the case in 2026, when no post-Lombardi Packers coach has produced fewer rushing yards through the same point.
Part of the issue is the offensive line and the way Green Bay has tried to reshape the run game. Over the last seven-plus seasons, LaFleur has moved away from his original wide zone approach toward a more gap-based system.
The Packers committed to that change in 2024 and 2025 by bringing in Josh Jacobs, signing Aaron Banks, and drafting Anthony Belton. Jacobs has been the best of the group, but in 2026 he has been hard to find, much like Banks.
Belton has not settled in at any spot on the line and hasn’t looked comfortable wherever the Packers have used him, and that has fed into the bigger collapse up front.
The penalties are just as alarming. Week 1 came with its share of questionable flags, but the bigger issue is the total.
Through three games, LaFleur’s team has been penalized 32 times. None of the other post-Lombardi Packers coaches had more than 28 penalties over the first three games of their final seasons.
Mike McCarthy, who was widely viewed as having lost control of the locker room and the discipline that comes with it, had only 15 penalties in the first three games of 2018.
Maybe LaFleur turns it around. Maybe this all ends up looking like a bad three-game stretch and nothing more.
But based on how his start compares with the closing acts of the other Packers coaches since Lombardi, the warning signs are flashing hard. Better coaches than LaFleur didn’t survive starts this rough.
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