The Green Bay Packers and head coach Matt LaFleur have agreed to a multiyear contract extension, league sources told The Athletic. The team is also nearing an extension for general manager Brian Gutekunst, a league source confirmed.
LaFleur, who just finished his seventh season, had one season remaining on his contract. First-year team president Ed Policy, who oversees the head coach and Gutekunst, previously said he’s generally opposed to someone serving in either of those roles during a contract year. Extending both will allow them to avoid that.
The Packers are coming off a crushing 31-27 loss to the Chicago Bears in the wild-card round last Saturday at Soldier Field. Green Bay led by 18 points at halftime and 11 points with less than six minutes remaining, but blew its fourth double-digit lead of the season.
LaFleur has made the playoffs six times in seven seasons but failed to reach the Super Bowl. The Packers lost in the NFC Championship Game during LaFleur’s first two seasons in 2019 and 2020, the divisional round in 2021 and 2023 and the wild-card round in 2024 and 2025. LaFleur has a 76-40-1 regular-season record, the fourth-best winning percentage (.654) among active head coaches.
The Packers finished the 2025 regular season 9-7-1, second in the NFC North and, for the third consecutive season, with the conference’s No. 7 playoff seed. However, after starting 9-3-1, they ended the season on a five-game losing streak, including the playoff loss.
According to a league source, the Packers’ playoff loss to the Bears had almost no bearing on Policy’s decision. Policy has worked with LaFleur for seven years — from serving on his hiring panel to onboarding him to attending every game he’s coached since 2019. Green Bay’s two dismal quarters in Chicago last Saturday night were simply two data points among hundreds that Policy used to reach the decision to extend LaFleur.
Policy views LaFleur as proficient in player and team development, notably so at quarterback, where the Packers have one of the NFL’s best in Jordan Love.
Policy told reporters last summer that he wasn’t extending LaFleur and Gutekunst with two seasons remaining on their contracts, but that decision was based more on how the organization operates than a disappointment in how the head coach/GM pair had performed. According to a league source, Policy felt “very good” about both LaFleur and Gutekunst staying in Green Bay long term last summer but wanted to remain open-minded until he had to make a decision after the 2025 season.
The source said it was possible Policy could have changed his mind on the futures of LaFleur and Gutekunst over the course of the season, but that it would’ve taken something “very significant” to do so. In the week since the Packers’ season ended, Policy didn’t spend much time considering whether to offer LaFleur an extension — his mind appeared to have already been made up — and instead worked with LaFleur, Gutekunst and vice president/director of football operations Russ Ball individually and collectively to ensure everyone was aligned and wanted to be in Green Bay.
The Packers are also keeping their same organizational structure of LaFleur, Gutekunst and Ball reporting directly to Policy. The first-year team president paid close attention to how those three communicated among one another this season, even about difficult subjects, and decided that changing the structure with the same people would present more risk. In their recent meetings, Policy didn’t mandate LaFleur make changes with his staff, and a source said neither Gutekunst nor Ball would, either.
The Packers appeared on track for the potential No. 1 seed in the NFC before defensive end Micah Parsons tore his ACL in Week 15 against the Denver Broncos. Parsons was still named a first-team All-Pro by The Associated Press despite missing the final three games. The Packers also lost standout tight end Tucker Kraft to a torn ACL in Week 9, and several other key players missed multiple games with injuries, including quarterback Love, wide receiver Christian Watson, wide receiver Jayden Reed, center Elgton Jenkins and right tackle Zach Tom.
With LaFleur in place for the foreseeable future, he must determine whether changes are needed on his coaching staff to get the Packers over the proverbial playoff hump. LaFleur also said Sunday that he anticipates defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley will get a head-coaching job this offseason. If that happens, the Packers will have a contingency plan for the defensive coordinator.
