Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur has already become the first coach in franchise history to win 10 or more games and take the Packers to the postseason in his first year as coach.
The Packers, now 11-3 with two games to go, have improved by five wins over 2018 and have an opportunity to win the NFC North and secure a first-round bye in the NFC playoffs over the final two weeks of the 2019 season.
So why not love for LaFleur as Coach of the Year?
Recent polling of 24 league executives by Tom Pelissero of NFL Network included just one vote for LaFleur, who trailed John Harbaugh, Sean McDermott, Kyle Shanahan and Mike Tomlin.
In fact, LaFleur received the same number of votes as Brian Flores, who is leading the 3-win Dolphins.
The lack of love is probably due in part to the Aaron Rodgers factor. LaFleur inherited a future Hall of Fame quarterback, and coaches rarely get the credit for wins when a football team has a top-level quarterback. Also, the Packers might be 11-3, but they lack a dominant offense or defense and many outsiders still aren’t sold on LaFleur’s team as a legitimate Super Bowl contender.
Still, LaFleur has an opportunity to become just the 10th rookie coach in NFL history to win 12 or more games. The last to do it? Matt Nagy, who went 12-4 with the Chicago Bears last season and won Coach of the Year.
The year before, Sean McVay won the award after leading the Los Angeles Rams to an 11-5 season. That team improved by seven wins.
LaFleur’s Packers can improve by seven wins and get to 13-3 in 2019 if they beat the Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions to finish the season.
Jim Harbaugh, the last rookie coach to win 13 games, won Coach of the Year with the San Francisco 49ers in 2011.
LaFleur would have to overcome other deserving coaches.
McDermott has the Buffalo Bills at 10-4, with a dominant run game and defense leading the way. There’s still a chance they could leapfrog the New England Patriots and win the AFC East.
Harbaugh is leading the AFC-leading Baltimore Ravens, who have MVP front-runner Lamar Jackson running a devastatingly effective offense. They lead the NFL in points and are fourth in points allowed.
Shanahan has helped revive the 49ers, who destroyed the Packers in San Francisco in November. His team is second in the league in scoring and fifth in scoring defense.
Tomlin’s Pittsburgh Steelers have stayed alive in the AFC playoff hunt despite losing running back Le’Veon Bell and receiver Antonio Brown this offseason and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger after just two games. The Steelers are 7-2 since a 1-4 start.
LaFleur’s argument is solid, too. He took over a shattered team that had missed the playoffs each of the last two seasons and reinvented the culture inside Lambeau Field. His team doesn’t turn the ball over and has seven wins by one score, and they’ve created an identity of winning that relies on a new player or set of players just about every week. The offense has received 17 total touchdowns from Aaron Jones, and it survived a month-long absence of Davante Adams.
LaFleur probably won’t win NFL Coach of the Year in 2019, but if the Packers get to 13-3, it’ll be hard to vote against him.
The last Packers coach to win NFL Coach of the Year was Lindy Infante in 1989.