Matt LaFleur found yet another way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the NFC playoffs. His latest postseason loss as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers was the worst, as his team blew a 21-3 halftime lead in Chicago, with the Bears rallying for an improbable 31-27 win.
Quarterback Jordan Love, with LaFleur calling great plays, ripped the Bears' defense for three touchdown passes in the first half, but could lead only one scoring drive after that with LaFleur going cold against Dennis Allen's defensive scheme. On a night when hated coaching countepart Ben Johnson made his share of his rookie mistakes, being too aggressive early, LaFleur outdid him late with both planning and managing the game.
With the loss, the Packers fell to 3-6 in the playoffs under LaFleur. LaFleur went 2-3 with Aaron Rodgers at QB. Despite a strong passing transition, he's now 1-3 with Love, going further in the wrong direction.
Those six losses aren't inspiring for the Packers ever having a big playoff breakthrough with LaFleur, despite his sparking regular-season record (76-40-1,.654) over seven years.
Here are six reasons why LaFleur has gone next level in grating Green Bay fans:
Matt LaFleur is failing against yet another division coaching nemesis
Johnson called out LaFleur when he was hired by the Bears, citing how it was fun to beat the Packers while Johnson was the offensive coordinator of the Lions under Dan Campbell. Before Johnson and Campbell wrestling the NFC North control from LaFleur's Packers, the Vikings' Kevin O'Connell got their first.
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Long gone are the days of the Packers cruising to 13 victories, as they did in each of LaFleur's first three seasons taking over from Mike McCarthy. Now it's a grind to just get into the playoffs in a division where every team ended up above.500.
Even though Campbell and O'Connell saw their teams fade from the playoffs, there is more consistent confidence in their coaching going forward than that of LaFleur's. Now Johnson has his number on the biggest stage, when the Packers should have had a clearer path to be the deepest playoff team from the division.
Matt LaFleur is not coaching to win games in the playoffs
This seems like a simple thing to do, right? But LaFleur isn't good at adjusting when the flow of a game changes or just focusing on whatever it takes to score one more point than the opponent.
LaFleur was in the zone with Love facing little pressure in the first half and picking apart the Bears' coverage. Johnson even helped him with a bad fourth-down decision that gave the Packers a short-field TD.
But then LaFleur tried to keep cranking with the downfield passing game in the second half, despite Allen dialing up different types of looks to pressure Love and trying to make him beat zones. The Bears were daring the Packers to run all over their shoddy run defense at times, yet with a halftime lead, Love had more than twice as many dropbacks (47) than the Packers had rushing attempts (23).
Four Packers, including Love had 10-plus yard runs on the Bears. As the game wore on, they would have more effective running Josh Jacobs, but they got too pass happy to help out the Bears. That continued through the end of the game, as the incompletions outweighed the long Love completions to leave too much time for a Bears game-winning drive.
It was difficult to know where LaFleur struggled more, not making the offensive adjustments or not seeing the big picture of how to put away the game.
Matt LaFleur is on the same trajectory as Mike McCarthy
LaFleur is lucky that his predecessor still has the biggest recent playoff meltdown for the Packers to his credit, turning a 16-0 halftime lead in Seattle into a 28-22 overtime loss in the 2015 NFC championship game. LaFleur's Packers were up by 18 going into the third quarter and 15 going into the fourth quarter.
The problem for LaFleur is the fact in Week 16 in Chicago, the Packers were up 13-3 going into the fourth quarter and Caleb Williams and the Bears just pulled off a similar comeback and made it look too easy, almost inevitable.
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The Packers were the better overall team in a lot of the playoff games McCarthy coached with Rodgers. Green Bay has been the better overall team in several of the playoff games LaFleur coached with both QBs. The Packers are not just losing, but underachieving and getting upset, not winning the games they should in the playoffs.
It's a conundrum, because of how good LaFleur is before the postseason, even with his share of bad losses (see Carolina and Cleveland in 2025). McCarthy had his breakthrough, with a bottom-seeded wild card team when Rodgers was 27, riding his red-hot QB to victory in Super Bowl 45. Fifteen years later, LaFleur won't be doing that with 27-year-old Love now eliminated.
LaFleur is now danger of falling into the zone of the late Marty Schottenheimer, who won 200 games without getting to a Super Bowl. His.613 winning percentage resulted in a 5-13 playoff record.
Whether it's now or in a few seasons, the Packers are bound to part ways with LaFleur given this trend of playoff disappointment, even if he has more playoff-qualifying winning.