GREEN BAY – Packers Head Coach Matt LaFleur spoke to reporters on Sunday afternoon, less than 24 hours after Green Bay’s 31-27 loss to the Chicago Bears in the NFC Wild Card playoffs.
Here are 10 things learned from LaFleur’s 26-minute news conference:
- LaFleur expects to talk with Packers President and CEO Ed Policy soon.
LaFleur said he spoke with Policy on the flight home from Chicago and the two are scheduled to talk again on either Sunday night or sometime Monday.
LaFleur is wrapping up his seventh year as head coach. He’s the fourth-winningest coach in team history at 76-40-1, advancing to the playoff six times.
Reflecting on the season, LaFleur lamented the fact Green Bay hasn’t secured a home playoff game since it last won the NFC North in 2021. The Packers haven’t advanced past the divisional round since hosting the NFC Championship Game in 2020.
Asked whether he expects to be back next season, LaFleur said his “sole focus is on our players, our team, and just trying to find ways to get better.” As for his desire to return next season, LaFleur offered a fast and emphatic “Of course” before going into greater detail.
“This is one of one. I love this place. I love the people,” LaFleur said. “I love our players, the locker room, everybody in our organization. This is a unique place. The community has been outstanding.
“I grew up in the Midwest, and it’s got the same type of vibe that I grew up in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Unless you’re from here, you don’t understand how friendly everybody is. … I’ve lived other places, so I think this is a unique place, and it’s a special place. My kids love it here, my family loves it here.”
- LaFleur believes execution, not a lack of composure, ended Green Bay’s season.
After reviewing the film of Saturday night’s loss, LaFleur felt an overall lack of execution was the primary culprit in Green Bay losing a 15-point lead entering the fourth quarter.
It was the latest in a series of losses the Packers experienced this year after darting out to an early lead, including last month’s 22-16 overtime loss in Chicago.
It added up to another gut-wrenching loss, which LaFleur hopes will serve as fuel for the team moving forward.
“This one stings and it should sting and it should sting for a long time,” LaFleur said. “When these guys are training away from the facility and there’s a moment where, ‘Oh man I don’t feel like doing this today,’ it’s like, ‘Hey think about how you felt in that locker room, maybe that can get your motivated to get up off your butt and do what you need to do to get a little bit better.'”
- LaFleur wants to take a deep dive into the Packers’ injury issues this season.
Green Bay finished with 18 players on its injured lists, which contributed to making upwards of 30 transactions over the final two weeks of the season.
LaFleur said he’s already had preliminary discussions with the medical staff but expects to dive further into those discussions this offseason.
“I think we have to look at everything, from how we train to how we practice,” LaFleur said. “Just trying to find maybe different ways to do things, but those are all the conversations that are ongoing right now, just taking all the data that we have, comparing to other teams or whatever it may be.
“Certainly this year, we had the injury bug a little bit. It’s like all right, can we do something different to avoid that?”
- Packers determining best course of action with Zach Tom.
Green Bay never got its starting right tackle back, as Tom missed the final four games after leaving with a knee injury against the Denver Broncos on Dec. 14.
At the start of last week, LaFleur expressed optimism regarding Tom’s potential availability for the playoffs but then the fourth-year veteran didn’t practice on Thursday.
Tom, who signed a contract extension in July, missed a total of six games due to an early oblique/back injury and then the knee. Asked whether Tom might need surgery, LaFleur said “everything’s on the table right now.”
“We’re still kind of working through that,” he said. “Obviously hoping to not go that route. He went through the week – we didn’t feel like he could go out there and compete to the level that he needed to and protect himself.”
- LaFleur is expecting to lose Jeff Hafley to an NFL head-coaching opportunity.
With Hafley lined up for several interviews, LaFleur said “all options are on the table” for how he would go about replacing the Packers’ defensive coordinator.
LaFleur praised the job Hafley has done during his two seasons in Green Bay and said he’ll “make sure we have a good plan in place” if Hafley secures a head-coaching position.
“I think Hafley’s gonna do a great job on the interview and I fully anticipate him getting one of these (open jobs),” LaFleur said. “I would be so happy for him because he deserves it and he’s a great friend, he’s a great man, he’s a great coach. I’d hate to see him leave for us, but at the same time, that’s what this business is all about and he’s earned those opps.”
- Other than Hafley, LaFleur hasn’t made any decisions regarding his coaching staff.
Asked whether he expects special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia to return in 2026, LaFleur said he’s still going through the process of talking with his staff about the season. Once everything gets sorted out, LaFleur will then shift the focus to next season.
“That’s all the stuff that we’re kind of focused on right now is going through everything, having the conversations with all our coaches,” he said. “And then we’ll determine all that.”
- Josh Jacobs asked to return kickoffs in Chicago.
With starting kickoff returners Savion Williams and Bo Melton both on injured reserve, Jacobs approached LaFleur last week about returning kickoffs against the Bears.
Jacobs hadn’t returned a kickoff since his final year at Alabama in 2018, when he returned one kickoff for a touchdown and led the SEC with 30.6 yards per return.
Jacobs produced 61 yards on his two returns against the Bears, though he fumbled his first. Kitan Oladapo recovered to allow Green Bay to maintain possession.
“When he said that to me, I’m like do you really want to return? He’s like ‘heck yeah I do,'” LaFleur said. “It was one of those deals that we were going to save ’til later in the game, crunch time when we needed it. He had a heck of a return, just gotta make sure we finish with the football right there in that situation.”
- Packers will look for answers to running problems.
One of the big reasons the offense stagnated Saturday night was the inability to re-establish the run after a promising first half.
After rushing for 49 yards on 12 carries in the first half, Jacobs picked up only six yards on seven carries in the final two quarters.
“I think that’s part of our process right now is you’re going to load up all the cutups, you’re going to take a hard look at it, and try to figure out the answers to that,” LaFleur said. “Was it a scheme-related issue? Was it personnel-related issue? I’d say it’s all the above. We all gotta be better.”
- Malik Willis’ hamstring injury limited Green Bay’s options.
LaFleur said he was open to the idea of building a few packages for the dynamic backup quarterback, but the hamstring injury that sidelined Willis during the regular-season finale in Minnesota prevented it. Willis served as Jordan Love’s backup Saturday but didn’t play.
“We felt good enough to put him in to play quarterback,” LaFleur said. “But as far as all the running stuff, if he was in the game, we couldn’t have done it anyways because it would have put him at risk.”
- Packers struggled to get back on track without Micah Parsons.
The Packers ended their season on a five-game losing streak, all of which occurred after their All-Pro pass rusher was lost for the season to a torn anterior cruciate ligament in Denver. Was his loss too damaging to the team’s psyche?
“It is the facts … Emotion’s a part of this game,” LaFleur said. “We talked about it all week: execution over emotion and you’ve got to be able to handle that stuff. Adversity’s a part of life, it’s a part of our game, and you’ve got to be able to focus on the task at hand and try to rally the troops and put together a better performance.”
