When Matt LaFleur took over in Green Bay from Super Bowl-winning coach Mike McCarthy, there was some friction. For one, he was only four years older than his two-time NFL MVP quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who wasn’t even sold on LaFleur’s new offensive scheme. It didn’t take long for Rodgers to get comfortable, however.
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LaFleur started as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers in 2019, and Rodgers won his third and fourth MVPs in 2020 and 2021. Even after Rodgers’ departure in 2023, LaFleur managed to seamlessly transition into the Jordan Love era. Since LaFleur took over, the Packers have reached the playoffs in five of six seasons, won 67 regular-season games (fourth-most), and three playoff games (tied for eighth).
LaFleur has been a strong and successful commander, but it wasn’t always that way. When he was cutting his teeth in the NFL on Mike Shanahan’s Washington Redskins staff in 2013, he had no designs on becoming a head coach. Despite being part of a staff that included five future NFL head coaches, including himself, LaFleur actually had his sights set on a much more modest dream back then.
“I never wanted these problems, to be honest with you. I never wanted to be a head coach. It just kinda fell in my lap… I didn’t want it necessarily, at least at the time,” LaFleur said on an episode of The Pivot.
“I was always trying to be the best quarterbacks coach I could be. My dad being a Mid-American Conference coach (MAC), my whole goal in the coaching profession was, ‘I want to get to the MAC before I’m 30 years old. And here I am in the National Football League,'” the 45-year-old coach added.
That year, the Redskins had Kyle Shanahan as the offensive coordinator, LaFleur as the QBs coach, Mike McDaniel as the WRs coach, Sean McVay as the TEs coach, and Raheem Morris as the DBs coach. Even Bobby Slowik was on that staff. And yet, they went 3-13, and most of them were fired. Go figure.
They simply didn’t have the talent to install their gaudy offensive systems. As LaFleur says, “Show me a good coach, and I’ll show you some good players.”
After stops as QBs coach at Notre Dame and with the Atlanta Falcons from 2014–2016, LaFleur landed back with McVay, who had gotten the top job with the L.A. Rams.
He tapped his old buddy as his offensive coordinator. From that perch on McVay’s shoulder in 2017, LaFleur realized that not only did he want to be an NFL head coach, but he also believed he could do it … and do it well.
“It wasn’t until I went to L.A. to be with Sean McVay and kind of get a front row seat and just see everything that went across his desk. And it was very eye-opening for me. And I learned a lot from it. It’s when my mind started to shift a little bit in terms of like, ‘Hey, I might want this for myself as well.'”
Matt LaFleur has overseen one of the smoothest transitions from an aging franchise QB that an NFL team has ever had. And just a few years on, his Packers are already title contenders again, thanks to some shrewd drafting and a blockbuster deal for Micah Parsons last week.
Could LaFleur be the first from that 2013 Washington crew to join McVay as a Super Bowl champion?
