Let’s rewind to 2019.
Matt LaFleur is 13-3 and has his team in the NFC Championship Game in his first season as Green Bay’s head coach. The future looks bright, even though the Packers lose 37-20 to a vastly superior San Francisco 49ers team. The Packers responded by drafting Aaron Rodgers’ replacement in the first round when they moved up to draft Jordan Love.
They would play in the conference championship game at Lambeau Field the following season, only to lose in bitter fashion to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Love would sit for three seasons behind Rodgers, getting one start in 2021 with Rodgers on the shelf with COVID-19.
Ultimately, the Rodgers era ended with a bitter playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers where the offense could not muster more than 10 points at home against an inferior 49ers team. That represented a turning point in Green Bay.
Rodgers would come back to Green Bay the following year, but the team stumbled to 8-9, and Rodgers did not look anything like the MVP player who was in Green Bay the previous two seasons.
He was traded to the New York Jets that offseason.
Love took the keys in 2023 and suffered an up-and-down season before the arrow was pointed skyward thanks to a three-game winning streak that got the Packers into the playoffs in Love’s first season.
Rodgers’ season lasted all of one series as he left the Jets’ opener against the Buffalo Bills with a torn Achilles that knocked him out for the rest of the year.
Meanwhile, Love was in the playoffs and posted a near-perfect passer rating in his debut against the Dallas Cowboys and had the 49ers trailing in the fourth quarter before two disastrous interceptions led to their demise.
The 2024 season was disappointing for both Love and Rodgers in different ways. Love was injured in the first game of the season and battled through that for most of the year. The Packers were an 11-win team but never looked the part of a true Super Bowl contender.
Rodgers and the Jets did not make the playoffs.
Rodgers enjoyed a bit of a renaissance after signing with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the offseason, winning a division title as he led a game-winning drive in the season’s final game, but they were bounced in the Wild Card round.
The Packers looked like Super Bowl contenders, and Love was a fringe MVP candidate until a fateful day in Denver changed the season. Micah Parsons and Zach Tom both went down with season-ending knee injuries, and the Packers never won another game after that.
Of course, the common thread between those two quarterbacks is LaFleur. After a 31-27 loss to the Chicago Bears, and LaFleur only having one year left on his contract, some questions started to surface about his job security.
LaFleur was ultimately given an extension, but there are plenty of fair questions yet to ask.
Supporters of LaFleur will point to his overall record of 76-40-1 in the regular season.
Since the playoff loss at Lambeau to the 49ers, however, the Packers are 37-30-1 in the last four seasons. They’ve won one playoff game in those four years and blew a fourth-quarter lead in two others.
While their chances of winning a Super Bowl likely circled the drain after the loss of Parsons and Tom, those injuries do not excuse the Packers blowing a 21-3 halftime lead against Chicago in the first round of the playoffs.
For better or worse, LaFleur is the coach of the Packers for the foreseeable future after team President Ed Policy extended him following the 2025 season.
The question now is what is to come of LaFleur’s Packers? Can they get over the hump?
To their credit, the Packers were 9-3-1 after a Dec. 7 victory over the Chicago Bears and looked every bit like a Super Bowl contender.
Perhaps a return to health for Parsons and Tucker Kraft will give the Packers the formula they were missing in this year’s postseason. One thing is certain: LaFleur and company will have to prove themselves. Any benefit of the doubt that he may have had was lost after a 31-27 loss to Chicago where he was mocked by Bears’ coach Ben Johnson following the game.
For Rodgers, his season ended with a 30-6 loss against the Houston Texans. That felt like the final game of his legendary career, but Rodgers was not willing to comment on his future.
When the future ultimately comes, there will be a microscope in Green Bay. They’re always a trendy pick to get to the Super Bowl.
It’s time to get off the roller coaster and prove it.
