Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur deserves his flowers for not only the growth and development of Jordan Love and the young offense during the 2023 season, but also how he was able to keep his team together even when things looked quite bleak.
Throughout the entire season, there were multiple gut-check moments for the Packers. A four-game losing streak early on had them sitting at 2-5, with the offense barely able to pick up a first down at times.
Even after fighting their way back to 6-6, the Packers then lost two in a row, putting their playoff hopes on life support. But again, LaFleur’s team fought back and not only made the playoffs but were one of the hottest teams in football that was just a play or two away from being in the NFC Championship Game.
“Just the ability for everybody to buy in,” said LaFleur of the 2023 Packers, “to continue to fight for one another. I can’t tell you how important that is with any team. If you get guys that genuinely like working with each other and will fight for the man next to them, then I think you’ve got a chance.”
Along with the inconsistent play on the field through the first half of the year, there were also cracks appearing off of it. The locker room lost a leader when Rasul Douglas was traded away. Over the final month, there were constant questions about Joe Barry’s job status. Jaire Alexander was suspended and De’Vondre Campbell shared his frustrations about his health on social media.
Any one of those things, coupled with a lack of results on the football field, could have caused this 2023 Packers team to implode had the right person not been leading the way. Instead, they made a run.
“I think there’s a lot of things we worry about naturally as coaches,” LaFleur said. “Yeah, there was some trying moments, no doubt about it but I think that’s true of every season. What you don’t want to do is for the world to kind of see some of the cracks because there are cracks.
“I don’t care what team you’re on, you want to keep that business kind of in house. I know some of the stuff kind of got out there a little bit. We have to learn from that as well and try to keep stuff in house.”
There is a not-so-distant world where at 2-5, 3-6, or even 6-8, this season could have gone in a completely different direction and spiraled out of control. And instead of discussing the potential that this team has going into 2024, the conversation would be around what’s next in Green Bay.
We learned a lot of things this season about these Packers, and one of them is just how strong the culture and leadership are within the organization. It’s not only LaFleur who has established that, in Green Bay, that’s been built throughout the years, but LaFleur is the main voice when it comes to the messaging of it and maintaining it.
“One of the things you love about this game” added LaFleur, “is all these guys have their own hopes and aspirations and their own personal wants and desires, but can you still put the team first, and that’s not easy to always do.
“But that’s something we’re going to continue to stress because I’m a big believer that if the team has success, everybody will benefit from it ultimately, and we’ve seen a lot of that here in the past.”
This season may have been the more trying, but it also wasn’t the first time LaFleur’s leadership and the culture of this Packers team shined through. Rewinding to 2022, the Packers found themselves 3-6 and down 14 points to Dallas in the fourth quarter. It could have been easy to pack it in, but they fought back and won.
A few weeks later in that same season, the Packers were 4-8 and down two scores in the fourth quarter against Chicago. Again, with their playoff hopes barely alive, the Packers came from behind and then won their next three games.
Along with LaFleur at the helm, that was a veteran-heavy Packers’ roster with the uber-competitive Aaron Rodgers at quarterback. This season, LaFleur was in charge of the youngest roster in the NFL and despite all the ups and downs, both on the field and off, he had this team playing its best when it mattered most.
“I think we were committed to our process throughout the entire season,” LaFleur said, “and it’s easy to get hung up on the end results, bit it really comes back down to how you do things on a daily basis. How you are finding different ways to get better. And just sticking together, like fighting through some tough times, and I think there’s been a lot of growth, a lot of learning lessons.”
Having the opportunity to be around this year’s Packers team, one of the first things that stands out is how close this group is, along with the care and belief they have for one another. Even when times are tough, it’s easier to get back up and fight when those relationships are established.
That is, of course, a credit to the players, but also to LaFleur, as the leader and visionary for this football team, for helping to cultivate that type of environment and being the glue at times when things got rocky.
Ultimately, a season that doesn’t end with a Super Bowl is going to be disappointing to varying degrees, but looking ahead, it feels like the sky is the limit for the Packers. Jordan Love proved to be a franchise quarterback. There is young talent everywhere, and the Packers have the right person in LaFleur leading the way.
“Certainly I think I learned a ton,” said LaFleur, “not only as the head coach, but as a play caller, as a guy dealing with just the number of young players on our team, how to handle these guys, how to lead. So I thought all in all, there’s a lot of good that came out of this.”