As promised in my previous article, Matt LaFleur’s Top 10 Signature Wins, I’m back to chronicle the resume blemishes that had fans far and wide calling for the coach’s job at the end of the 2025 season. Packers Team President Ed Policy surely analyzed each and every one of these losses before ultimately deciding to extend the head coach for what is likely the rest of the Jordan Love / Micah Parsons window. As Packers fans, we can only hope that Policy made the right call and that LaFleur will put these kinds of performances behind him and bring home his first Lombardi after eight or more years on the job, as only John Madden (8th year), Tom Landry (12th year), and Bill Cowher (14th year) have previously done. That said, the nature of LaFleur’s failures truly tests how fanatical Packers fans can bring themselves to be in support of Green Bay’s head man.

10.) 2024 Season: Week 4 vs. the Minnesota Vikings (31-29)

In a season in which Coach LaFleur’s Packers posted a paltry 1-5 record in their own division, many folks would point to getting swept by the Lions or allowing Caleb Williams to get his first come-from-behind victory against Green Bay after Jordan Love and Christian Watson both went down with injuries in Week 18, but I think this early season matchup which saw the return of Jordan Love from a Week 1 injury is the biggest black eye. Once the game script was unsalvageable and LaFleur set his young QB loose in the second half, the Packers nearly put together a miraculous comeback, but they only found themselves in that position because they seemingly didn’t get off the bus until they were down 28-0 in the second quarter. One or two clankers a year where the entire roster looks like they’re playing through the worst hangover they’ve ever endured has become a staple of LaFleur’s tenure, but this dud gets a special callout for being a home loss in a year where the Packers were one finger-tip blocked kick away from putting up a goose egg against the NFC North. The last team to go 0-6 in the North? The infamous 0-16 Lions of 2008.

Key takeaway: LaFleur hasn’t proven that he treats divisional matchups with the respect they deserve.

9.) 2022 Season: Week 6 vs. the New York Jets (27-10)

This game was the second loss in a five-game skid which would have been an eight-game losing streak if not for a desperate OT victory over the Cowboys later in the year. The 17-point failure against the Zach-Wilson-led visitors was the largest defeat of the year, but it was actually still a one-score game entering the 4th quarter. That didn’t stop LaFleur from calling 45 pass attempts to 19 rushes, despite QB Aaron Rodgers having broken the thumb on his throwing hand the week before. What this game is remembered for though, is Jets HC Robert Saleh’s postgame comments: “Just keep giving them body blow after body blow and keep hitting them in the mouth. We felt like if we can just keep taking them down to deeper water, they’ll find out they can’t swim.” As many fans know, LaFleur was the best man at Saleh’s wedding, but that didn’t stop the gritty Jets coach from basically calling his friend soft. That’s about the worst thing you can call a football team, but LaFleur did nothing to disprove the notion in his most disappointing season as a coach.

Key takeaway: LaFleur hasn’t proven that his teams are tough enough to weather adversity.

8.) 2024 Season: Wild Card Round at the Philadelphia Eagles (22-10)

Jordan Love threw three picks behind an offensive line that simply crumbled when its veteran leader Elgton Jenkins left with an injury after playing all of four snaps. I’m sure that the throwing elbow injury Love sustained the week before didn’t help matters, but injuries aren’t an excuse. Every team deals with injuries. If an injury is truly bad enough to make a player a liability, then it’s the coach’s job to insert the backup. Lord knows I’ve seen my fair share of bench-warmers come in and move the ball up and down the field at will against the Packers. The cold, hard fact is that LaFleur’s team was simply not as prepared or mentally dialed in as the eventual Super Bowl champion Eagles were. Green Bay didn’t move the ball with anywhere close to the efficiency they showed in the Week 1 matchup between these two teams, a 34-29 loss that was close to the very end. 10 points just isn’t good enough for a head coach who built his reputation on offense.

Key takeaway: LaFleur hasn’t proven that he can adapt his gameplan to injuries in real time.

7.) 2022 Season: Week 18 vs. the Detroit Lions (20-16)

It wasn’t a playoff game, but it was an elimination game. Despite everything that went wrong in the 2022 season, the Packers had a “win and you’re in” opportunity while hosting the 8-8 Lions at home. Detroit was a familiar 1-6 heading into the rivals’ first matchup of the season--an UGLY 15-9 L for Green Bay--that one could argue was the turning point in the culture that Dan Campbell has built in Detroit. If that first matchup was a turning point, then this second one was a public announcement. Aaron Rodgers’ last game as a Packer ended up being a 205 yard effort with 1 TD and 1 interception. Granted, the Pack were riding a four-game win streak and coming off of a beatdown of the Vikings, and LaFleur’s squad did enter the 4th quarter with a lead, but I distinctly remember shouting at my TV that Jordan Love would give us the best chance to win. He’d had a bit of a coming-out party in injury-relief for Rodgers against the Eagles in Week 12, going 6 of 9 for 113 yards and a TD, and Rodgers simply looked old in this game.

Many fans, myself included, desperately wanted to take a king’s ransom from Denver in exchange for Rodgers and hand the keys to Love in 2022, but the Packers’ braintrust decided to get the band together again for one last run. This “close but no cigar” letdown where Detroit officially passed Green Bay in the division standings serves as a microcosm of that decidedly not bold thinking. With the playoffs on the line and his back against the wall, LaFleur chose not to rock the boat and rode his veteran signal caller to the bitter end, even as the future sat on the bench, desperate for a chance to lead the team. What did LaFleur possibly have to lose when Rodgers had already thrown 4 interceptions against Detroit in seven quarters of play?

Key takeaway: LaFleur hasn’t proven that he is willing to turn to the bench when starters aren’t getting it done.

6.) 2019 Season: NFC Championship at the San Francisco 49ers (37-20)

Some fans might be surprised that this game doesn’t rank higher on this list of embarrassments, but it was clear to anybody watching that the Packers were simply out-classed by a more talented team. The 37-8 beatdown that Green Bay suffered against San Francisco earlier in the year could be evidence enough, but for the truly masochistic readers, I’ll rehash the gory details: down 27-0 at halftime, Aaron Rodgers was picked twice and fumbled 3 times (losing 1), San Francisco ran for 286 yards and 4 TDs, and oh yeah, QB Jimmy Garoppolo only needed to attempt 8 passes ALL GAME LONG. I don’t care how good of a coach you are: if the opposing team can successfully deploy the equivalent of a Pop Warner playbook, that means your players just aren’t good enough. So it’s hard for me to give LaFleur too much blame on this one, but he does have to be held responsible for facilitating one of the most pathetic showings in Packers playoff lore. Perhaps more balance in the offensive play-calling, more aggression to go for it on 4th down, or even a trick play or two could have thrown the 49ers off balance and kept the score more respectable.

Key takeaway: LaFleur hasn’t proven that he can schematically adjust when an opponent exploits a major talent weakness.

5.) 2021 Season: Week 9 at the Kansas City Chiefs (13-7)

How can a mid-season matchup against an AFC opponent who’d made the Super Bowl the year before be worse than losing an NFC Championship game? Emotionally, there’s no comparison, but since we’re looking at things through the lens of Matt LaFleur’s coaching chops, I think that this 7-point display of stubbornness and futility deserves recognition. With QB1 Aaron Rodgers forced to sit out due to COVID protocols, this road matchup served as 2020 first round pick Jordan Love’s first career start. And never in my life have I seen a quarterback so incapable of finding a hot read. Love has grown immensely in this department in the years since, but in this game, his final statline of a 56% completion percentage with 1 TD and 1 interception for a 69.5 QB rating looks twice as good on paper as it did on the field. Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo blitzed and blitzed and blitzed some more, bringing extra pressure on 51% of Love’s dropbacks. Love went 6 of 17 for 30 yards against the blitz; LaFleur never adjusted the gameplan. He asked Love to drop back 39 times against an elite defense in one of the toughest venues in the league in his first start and only ran the ball 20 times in support of his overwhelmed field general. After the game, LaFleur made excuses about the gameplan being meant for Aaron Rodgers, which only highlights how much the coach struggles to make adjustments when he doesn’t have time to prepare. Jordan Love never had a chance.

Key takeaway: LaFleur hasn’t proven that he can adapt his offense for rookies or inexperienced players.

4.) 2021 Season: Week 1 at the New Orleans Saints (38-3)

Where to start? This 35-point loss is officially the largest of LaFleur’s career. It’s also the lowest scoring output of his career. It’s also the worst of a disturbing “didn’t get off the bus” style of loss that has popped up at least once in every single season of the LaFleur tenure and arguably at least a dozen times overall. What’s more, it’s representative of LaFleur’s disappointing 8-6 record in opening games and post-bye-week games--matchups where the team had the advantage of extra time to prepare. Oh, and let’s not forget that the “home team” actually had to travel to another state to host this matchup due to hurricane activity in New Orleans. A 35-point drubbing from a team that went on to miss the playoffs is the type of loss that tends to elicit the phrase “burn the tape,” but maybe somebody in Green Bay needs to take the matches away from the head coach before another blowout, low-effort loss gets brushed aside.

Key takeaway: LaFleur hasn’t proven that he can energize and focus his teams when they’re not carried by the inertia of routine.

3.) 2020 Season: NFC Championship vs. the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (31-26)

This was the year. Green Bay fought back valiantly from a 28-10 3rd quarter deficit, intercepting the legendary Tom Brady three times in the process to pull within 5 points entering the final quarter. Tampa managed a field goal to increase the lead to 8, and with 2 minutes and 37 seconds left on the clock, LaFleur opted to kick a 26-yard field goal rather than go for a 4th and 8. QB Aaron Rodgers was visibly livid at the cowardice of the decision. I can’t place all of the blame on LaFleur, as Rodgers tossed three straight incompletions to get to 4th down and wavered in the heat of the moment when he had a chance to run toward the goal line and at least set up a more manageable 4th down. What I can place the blame on LaFleur for is not being attuned to all aspects of the game and calling a time out when he saw that his defensive coordinator had dialed up a single high safety coverage with 1 second remaining in the first half and the Bucs out of field goal range. Maybe the scars of the 39 yard touchdown pass that Kevin King surrendered are what have made LaFleur so averse to aggressive defensive coordinators since this fateful game? I could also call out the head-scratching decision to play musical chairs on the offensive line right before the biggest game of his career, but at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is that the Packers weren’t poised under pressure and have only gotten further and further from a ring with every year that’s passed since this game.

Key takeaway: LaFleur hasn’t proven that he can maintain situational awareness when the pressure is highest.

2.) 2021 Season: Divisional Round vs. the San Francisco 49ers (13-10)

Joe Barry’s much maligned defense put up a performance of Lambeau lore in this Divisional Round matchup, holding the vaunted San Francisco offense to 6 points. Unfortunately, after failing to convert on 3rd down for the sixth time that game, the Green Bay punt unit let the 49ers through for their second blocked kick of the contest, which they recovered and turned into a special teams touchdown that proved to be the difference. Two blocked kicks in one game? What terrible luck! Well, not really. Everybody outside of the Packers’ organization could see what a liability the special teams were ALL YEAR LONG and were calling for coordinator Maurice Drayton’s job about midway through the season. On the year, the unit missed 9 field goals (2 blocked), gave up a punt return, coughed up a couple turnovers, and were generally terrible in all phases of the game. Everybody kept saying that special teams would cost the Packers, and that’s exactly what happened. Sure, I could harp on the fact that 10 points just isn’t good enough for an offensive head coach (or maybe any employed head coach?), but LaFleur’s stubborn arrogance in refusing to correct a staffing mistake when there was still time makes this one of the worst losses of his career, because his fingerprints are all over it.

Key takeaway: LaFleur hasn’t proven that he can set a standard and hold his staff accountable.

1.) 2025 Season: The 2025 Season

Call it cheating if you want, but if I objectively ranked every loss from the 2025 season and included them on this list, there wouldn’t be many other games to discuss. One word encapsulates the Green Bay Packers’ 2025 season: collapse. It was an utter collapse in Week 3 at Cleveland, when a potential game-winning kick was blocked, setting the Browns up on their own 47 yard line with 21 seconds to drive for the game-winning field goal. It was a defensive collapse in Week 4 against the Cowboys that led to a 40-40 tie. It was an offensive collapse that led to consecutive losses against the Panthers and Eagles where the Packers could only manage 13 and 7 points, respectively. It was a collapse of flabbergasting improbability that allowed Chicago to come from behind in Week 16--down 10 points with 5:03 left in the 4th--to win in overtime, basically recreating the soul-scarring choke-job of the 2014 NFC Championship failure against the Seahawks. It was a collapse of effort in Week 17 when the Packers were still very much in the running for the division crown if they could simply win out and they instead rolled over for a Ravens squad led by a career backup at QB to the tune of 41 points surrendered in Lambeau. And it was an 18-point second half collapse against the Bears that allowed the green and gold’s most storied rival to take the postseason matchup lead (2-1) and end Green Bay’s season in the process.

2025’s failures brought coach LaFleur’s career record in one-score games to 37-29-1, good for a barely-better-than-a-coin-flip .560 winning percentage. The 5-game losing streak to close the season was the second of his career (2022 being the first); you have to go back to Aaron Rodgers’ first season as a starter in 2008 for the last such streak. If you’re looking for a skid even worse than what LaFleur’s managed twice, you’ve got to drive the DeLorean all the way back to 1986. The fact that coach LaFleur managed to cap this dishonorable feat with what is unquestionably one of the very worst and most vomit-inducing playoff losses in the team’s 107 year history is…special.

Key takeaway: LaFleur hasn’t proven that he can come through in the clutch.

(Dis)Honorable Mentions

• 2019 Season: Week 9 at the Los Angeles Chargers (26-11)

  • The very first of LaFleur’s failures to prepare the team to even be competitive.

• 2023 Season: Week 14 at the New York Giants (24-22)

  • “Tommy Cutlets” will be a bar trivia answer for years to come.

• 2023 Season: Divisional Round at the San Francisco 49ers (24-21)

  • The team just might have had enough magic to sprint to the Super Bowl if LaFleur could have stressed ball security to Jordan Love a little more thoroughly.

Will Matt LaFleur be able to shed his reputation for stubbornness, lack of accountability, and wilting under pressure in 2026? Will he inspire this team to consistently play a full 60 minutes? Will he show a killer instinct and stop treating the 3rd quarter like a practice period for the punter? For my own sanity, I dearly hope so. I don’t think a list like this can support many new entries without an investigation into what exactly Coach LaFleur is blackmailing Ed Policy with.