After Green Bay’s 10-7 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football, Packers head coach Matt LaFleur was forced to address questions about his job security.
The loss was the second consecutive for Green Bay, and it dropped them to 5-3-1 on the season, which is good for third in the extremely competitive NFC North. That’s not really where anyone predicted the Packers to be at this point in the season, and their struggles have led to some whispers about LaFleaur’s future in Wisconsin.
"I'll leave that for everybody else to decide," LaFleur replied when asked if he thought he was coaching for his job at this point. "I'll just focus on the day-to-day... I feel like you're always coaching for everything in this league, you know? That's just my mindset. It's always been that way. You can't ever exhale. You got to always be pushing. That's just my mindset and that will be my mindset 'til they tell me not to coach anymore."
This isn’t a Brian Daboll situation. LaFleur isn’t in danger of losing his job in the middle of the season. But, if things continue to go south for the Packers for the rest of the season and they miss out on the playoffs, then there could potentially be some uncomfortable conversations.
LaFleur has had some solid success during his tenure in Green Bay, notably leading the Packers to consecutive NFC Championships in 2019 and 2020. However, the team has just one playoff win over the last four years, and if that number doesn’t increase this season, perhaps the organization will want to go in a different direction.
We’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here, though. There’s still a lot of football to play this season, and the Packers are still in position to make a playoff run as five of their final eight games come against divisional opponents. How they fare in those games could go a long way towards determining LaFleur’s future with the franchise.