“We all have to be better, starting with me.”
Matt LaFleur should have those words tattooed onto his body. No matter how bad things are or how obvious the issue is, LaFleur will walk up to a podium and give you some version of exactly that.
Being a leader means making tough decisions. For that exact reason, I am a writer and not a leader. As a writer it’s hard to criticize a head coach midway through his first down year after three consecutive 13-win seasons, but I believe we are at that place with Matt LaFleur. His stubborn loyalty continues to hurt this team.
Do I know the ins and outs of how LaFleur runs his locker room and his team? Absolutely not. For any of us to assume certainty on something like that would be silly. But anyone who has followed this organization over the past few years has seen a pattern develop. Don’t get me wrong loyallty is a good thing. But it’s a spectrum. One can be loyal to the detriment of a greater cause.
The Packers have a potential problem. Then the potential problem becomes a definite problem. Then Matt LaFleur does nothing. The problem gets even worse. LaFleur does nothing again. Then the problem becomes a disaster, and finally, LaFleur makes a change.
Exhibit one, your honor, Amari Rodgers.
Most Packer fans held a large amount of vitriol for Rodgers, but at a certain point, you can hardly blame him. How many times does a guy need to prove to a head coach that he’s not capable of a position before the head coach makes a decision? Rodgers had more fumbles than receptions. The fact that LaFleur allowed Rodgers to continue to trot out on the field week after week is ridiculous. Everyone on earth knew he should be removed from the position a year before LaFleur finally cut him. I’m all for second and even third chances, but at a certain point, you’re hurting everybody, including the guy himself, by continuing to put him in a situation he is not fit for.
Exhibit two, Yosh Nijman.
Packers Twitter knew Yosh Nijman should be playing right tackle half a year before Matt LaFleur would make the right call. It’s not good to be consistently outthought by idiots typing into their phones.
LaFleur constantly talks about putting his best five linemen on the field, yet consistently put Royce Newman on the field over Yosh and Zach Tom. It took him all this time to understand that Tom at left tackle and Nijman at right is the answer, while Bakhtiari is out despite seemingly every other person on the planet knowing it.
And, finally, exhibit three: Joe Barry.
“We’re not going to go down that road,” LaFleur said via Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “If I thought there was an issue there, then I would certainly, we’d make the change. But we work as a staff. And collectively, we’re all in this sucker together.”
How is this guy still the defensive coordinator? Point to statistics all you want, but this defense has underperformed. The offense and its desire for weapons has been sacrificed year-in and year-out to build a roster full of top picks. However, the defense still failed in a season where they were asked to carry the load for the first time.
Jaire Alexander is having a strange year, but Jaire Alexander is also an all-world man corner playing Joe Barry’s weird scheme. The players don’t like it, the fans don’t like it, and the national media doesn’t like it. In almost any other market in the country with expectations this high, a team would’ve absolutely fired their coordinator in this situation. At the very least, let’s hope Barry is one situation where LaFleur can stop the cycle before it gets to Amari Rodgers-level. There are way too many fantastic coordinator options out there to keep this up.
Even though the situations resolve, the reality is that Matt LaFleur clearly has a pattern of committing to people long after they’ve proven they shouldn’t be committed to. I’m not saying anything outrageous like LaFleur shouldn’t be the coach of this team, but I think it’s absolutely worth calling him out on this. The NFL is a difficult business, and this team is lucky to have a Hall of Fame quarterback. Green Bay can’t go wasting it because the leader can’t make tough decisions. And speaking of that Hall of Famer, it’ll be interesting to see how he handles the Jordan Love situation as the season progresses.
