The Green Bay Packers dumped longtime successful head coach Mike McCarthy during this past season. While McCarthy had a slew of winning years and a Super Bowl to his credit, the past couple of seasons were underwhelming, to say the least. McCarthy had lost the ability to inspire his team — and namely all-galaxy QB Aaron Rodgers.
After Week 17, Green Bay trotted a few coordinators and former head coaches from around the league into their offices to interview. I was a bit miffed that I didn’t make the cut of 10, and of those they interviewed, many were more underwhelming than me.
Joe Philbin, a longtime Packers position coach, was the interim head coach this season. A lot of people in the organization like Philbin, but all you have to look at is his miserable time spent in Miami and see that he was not right for the job — nor was Philbin’s interim replacement with the Dolphins, Saints assistant Dan Campbell. Adam Gase — the Miami head coaching disaster that followed Philbin and Campbell — also was said to interview.
Josh McDaniels, the OC for the Patriots had an up-and-down run in Denver and turned down the Colts job a year ago. McDaniels was thought to be the long-time front-runner for the Packers job, seeing his success in Boston with Tom Brady.
The first nine candidates apparently did little to move the needle in Green Bay. Then they brought in Matt LaFleur, a young 39-year-old offensive coordinator from Tennessee that had QB and offensive jobs with the Rams and Falcons in the past three years. In LaFleur, the Packers feel they have found their man — so much so that Rodgers reportedly called the new coach before he was formally offered the job “just to talk.”
But is LaFleur truly going to be the man? Seeing as John Harbaugh is still with the Ravens and Mike Tomlin hasn’t been let go from Pittsburgh, there really is not another intriguing option available for arguably the hottest available job in the past decade.
LaFleur was the QB coach in Atlanta when QB Matt Ryan won MVP and nearly had a Super Bowl victory over the Patriots. The playcalling that year was done by Kyle Shanahan, one of the brightest offensive minds in the game, who is now the head coach in San Francisco.
In Los Angeles in 2017, LaFleur was the offensive coordinator under new coach Sean McVay, who called all the plays as the Rams went from a laughing stock of the league into a true contender. This year, the Rams have one of the most dynamic offenses in football — even better than the 2017 version.
LaFleur went to Tennessee to gain the chance at calling his own plays. With mixed results from an offense riddled with injuries, the Titans nearly made the postseason. LaFleur said the year pushed him out of his comfort zone, which readied him for a shot to be a head coach.
With strong early returns by other young offensive-minded coordinators turned coaches, like Chicago’s Matt Nagy and McVay, Green Bay hopes they have found the next diamond in the rough. But what happens if LaFleur is the next Gase, or even Bill Lazor — the hot product from Philadelphia that failed in Miami and struggled in Cincinnati this season? That would mean Rodgers’ last chance to get a second — or even third — coveted Lombardi trophy will be wasted.
And that would be a gol’ darn shame.
— Adam Krebs is a reporter for the Times and is anxiously counting down the final 31 days before pitchers and catchers report. He can be reached at akrebs@themonroetimes.net.
