Looks like the comment section for "Polluted" article is well, polluted with internet bugs.

This one posted, Al.

"....the Packers' DL coaching also has to come into question."

I agree totally. Outside of RB coach Ben Sirmans, the longest tenured coach on LaFleur's staff, there needs to be an upgrade of coaching talent on O.

Butkus is not getting it done on the OL. The top 2 back ups trying to fill Jenks LG spot...Glover and Tellfort...were terrible. I was shocked how poorly they played, After a year on the 53, who are effective backups? There is no Nijman in that room.

WR coach Mahaffey isn't displaying growth from his WR room...not sure what Vrable would call excellent results as Pass Game Coordinator, either.

This would be the off season for LaFleur to do upgrade his staff with Clements retiring and Stenovich possibly leaving. Get a talented OC and give him play calling duties or you will limit your recruiting pool. Replace Butkus with a proven OL coach. Upgrade the pass game operation and hire a "drop doctor" WR coach.

Defensive staff has developed solid growth from their men...except Rebrovich. Noticeable lack of development and performance across the front four.

Will LaFleur hold his staff accountable? If past is prologue....feet of clay.

Mine was deleted but no loss. It was kind of fun reviewing comments from the 8th, anyway.

As Al says, the D held its own against Philly and is a pass rush away from being a top 5 unit. Add improved LB and backfield play this offseason and it will be a strength of the team. Been a long time since that could be said.

Won't hurt to tweak special teams. Once they found their kicker, (I hope they can keep him) it looked like it wouldn't drag the team down at least. Then it did.

The main fix to the team that if not done will make improving elsewhere pointless, is the offense. Particularly the O-line and its depth. Very fortunate that depth wasn't tested till the playoffs, or the Packers probably wouldn't have made it. Be surprising how much better Love and the receivers will play and how much play calling will improve with an O-line that can't be pushed around by the big guys. It's amazing how well the running game worked but it was more on the RBs and think what they could do with consistent/reliable blocking that would make a world of difference in the passing game..

Just 3 play action snaps. 1 angle route by a running back (as far as I saw). Did our TEs ever run a seam route? Kraft is catching too many near the line of scrimmage (mostly screens), chipping and then running a short crosser, or chipping and just leaking out. Got to be better.

Having Love fake some rah-rah's is a recipe for phoniness. Would you have him assume the smug arrogance of Rodgers? Thanks but no thanks. Love is what he is, let him be cool and detached and let success be the metric. Just give him some damn help with better play calling.

Fact of the matter is that it's show time for LaFleur. Regardless of perceived pass rush limitations, the defense kicked in. The team was good enough to advance further than they did, and it was offense failure for the second year in a row that prevented it, and honest to god that lays to rest at the feet of Matt LaFleur.

Can't argue with you Al. I just can't wrap my head around a 11-6 season and my feeling of disappointment. Don't know how we got to that level playing inconsistent, undisciplined ball. Don't know how we were within 6 points early in the 4th quarter with that game plan and a QB who was playing like crap. Maybe we aren't that far off?

Aside from the obvious gaps on the O-line, D-line, secondary and WR groups, I think the focus needs to be on LaFleur and his staff. His comfortable Joe Barry pick was rectified with a smart Jeff Hafley upgrade. Consistency and discipline are established in practice through coaching. On going slow starts and strange game strategies point back to the offensive coaching. You only have to look to Detroit to see what strong OC and DC staffs can achieve despite a ton of injuries.

Hope the organization can make some solid steps this off season because 3rd place isn't good enough.

Thanks Al

I heard Mike Wahle criticize the OL coaching on Andy Herman’s podcast. He said that, after watching tape for years, he doesn’t see any improvement of footwork or technique for the O-lineman. I would say the same thing about the DL. How many years are we going to have to watch Gary and LVN lock up and push OTs. When are they going to learn a couple of other pass rush techniques? It’s not rocket science. It shouldn’t take five years. It seems like the D-linemen never improve.

The LaFleur offense has been both predictable and ineffective and remarkably similar since at least 2022. The team got hot against mostly weak opponents late in 2023, but around that it returned to type. In 2023 we blamed Rodgers for 2022. We blamed inexperience for the first half of 2023. 2024 clearly and consistently demonstrated that neither was true. While both may have contributed, this season showed that the root characteristics stem from LaFleur.

One increasingly damning aspect is the consistent failure of the scripted plays, a problem that predates this season but was magnified this year. That’s also a subset of generally not winning the tactical battles and a failure to adjust and improve both the offense and discipline over the season. Nor did many offensive players take any kind of step (except Kraft) and we used but lacked the imagination to fully capitalize on our run game with Jacobs, as you observe.

After 6 years, people are finally seeing that LaFleur is not the innovative play caller we have been told he is, nor is he tactically astute. There is no Rodgers around to obscure that. The offense changed very little in personnel terms. The same problems on the OL that LaFleur’s coaches have refused to acknowledge resurfaced. Only a remarkable yards after contact performance from Jacobs and Love and Willis being typically good at avoiding direct snaps helped us limp on, but we never had stable pockets consistently.

So now the aura of offensive genius is recognized as punctured, and it’s not just emerged this year, but actually just a continuation without the prior excuses to mask it. The regression and indiscipline suggest ongoing coaching issues, there are continuing problems with personnel management on the coaching side offensively it seems and with the use of personnel, some of which you describe.

Accepting the above, amply evidenced now and widely accepted and then not seeing why it is absolutely essential to move on from LaFleur as soon as possible makes zero sense to me. What does LaFleur really bring when one winnows those out? In what way is he ahead of average in the league? His one calling card was being an offensive savant. Oddly, that wasn’t supported by his prior record statistically and, 6 years in his offense is nearer to final era McCarthy than to a league trailblazer others are copying.

LaFleur has shown himself to be a head coach who isn’t a good leader, motivator, preparer or tactician. I doubt anyone can seriously make a case for the opposite. He’s now been revealed as incapable of deliberating an imaginative, inventive or even an adaptive offense. He’s never noticeably lighted roster over the sum of its parts. He’s serially unable to change it to overcome teams that have steady beaten us and not just this year. That leaves nothing.

He’s not good. He’s a pretender grounded in hype not production. Why after 6 years you and many others who describe the magnitude of the failings are still not willing to make the jump to accepting what they represent is truly baffling to me. You describe a failed HC but refuse to accept it: seeing the emperor has no clothes but refusing to accept he is naked.

LaFleur is not a capable Head Coach and we now have unclouded evidence on all levels of the role. He is no longer a neophyte but 6 years in and not progressing but repeating. We will not improve with him. In fact we may continue to regress and you give some salient on field examples of why.

Yes, I would have taken that offer two years ago, Al. However, here we stand at a crossroads where the Packers must choose between the status quo and a dynasty. The only solution is to assemble an ad hoc committee of experts to study how Minnesota and Detroit have become so incredibly successful. While this committee conducts its work, the BOD must rise up and fire all staff at 1265. Everyone. Install Daniel Airens as interim President (he knows snowblowers) and have him work with the ad hoc committee.

The committee should present a plan for coaching hires that reflect toughness and cutting edge innovation in all phases of the game. Large scale player trades should be on the table with low effort, low character, high salary players out the door first. Coaching staff will be replaced by proven winners who never make mistakes and operate at a high level 24/7, 365. All new player personnel will be elite athletes who never get hurt.

Finally, the Packers must eliminate the current "ownership" structure. Find a buyer, maybe Jerry Jones could be allowed to own two franchises, so a decisive owner who will not tolerate mediocrity can rule the land. The Titletown District should also be sold (I'm thinking Kwik Trip) so it doesn't continue to be a distraction to what's most important in Green Bay, and that is the football team.

"Leaning into the run game when you have Josh Jacobs is smart but also kind of a waste if you don't build on that with some play action passes. It's also a waste if you don't make a concerted effort to find other ways to get him the ball other than inside handoffs against a DL like Philadelphia's. Sure this is me being "play calling guy," but tell me, am I off base?'

-The offense does look different from when LaFleur first came to GB. He made the comment of the offense evolving. Which i get. But even though you evolve you shouldn't get rid of the core principles either. The core is the "Illusion of Complexity". Making one play look like another. One thing was clear, they adjusted the run blocking schemes to work better for Jacobs. He is more of a downhill runner, where Jones was more of an outside cut back type of runner. I hope for this offseason they find more ways to get things to blend more.

'I can't remember seeing a team decimated by injuries in one game as what happened to the Packers against the Eagles. At one point late in the game, I said, "If the Packers were a horse, they'd shoot it." '
- Losing Watson the week prior was a major Killer. But then in the game, they lost Jenkins. That clearly played a huge part in our offense. The backups were not good. Then later losing Doubs and Reed going down made us be down our top 3 WR's. Then at the end of the game to lose Myers was adding salt to the wound.

"The Packers defense did as good a job against the Eagles as you could expect with such a meager pass rush. In this game, the Eagles were only 2/10 on third down!"
- This was a hell of a performance by the defense. Now they just need to go get the pieces that Hafley wants to run the defense the way he wants to run it.

Al are you saying MLF's offensive play calling Is Stale & Predictable?
That would be a comparison to Mike McCarthy! Six years Into his HC career
and I don't see the Offensive Guru we were told he was. Yep "The Seed Has Been Planted"!

I don't think MLF is going anywhere but as others mentioned, he should be upgrading his position coaches.
He should look further afield for the most innovative types and supervise all of them more closely. I would also recommend a strong offensive mind to help him with game-planning, in-game management, etc. He doesn't realize he is a CEO and he needs to build a competent team around him.

My greatest concern about Matt is that he seems incurious. He should be reading books about team structure, showing interest in what makes successful teams succeed. He is a bit limited in recognizing current trends, locating innovative position coaches, etc. He seems to want familiarity (mediocrity) around him--

Is Stenavich the best person to call run plays? He was an O-line coach.I think the run plays are predictable and don't adapt to the team they are playing. How has the emphasis on the run affected the pass game? Are Matt and Stenavich working well together on play-calling? (No)

Baffling to me is the slow start to nearly every game. The team acted like they could just go through the motions and win the game. That is on the coaching staff. The winners instill a sense of urgency that often wasn't there with the exceptions of...Jacobs, McKinney Gary and Kraft, possibly Reed.

MLF needs to look in the mirror and decide whether he can motivate his players to the next level. Lombardi is the first thought, but I remember Mike Holmgren also being a great motivator. Young players need a boot in the backside sometimes to know what being a professional means.

The focus among fans is on Love, who certainly needs a refresher course in mechanics and leadership, but the rest of the team needs some soul searching to think whether good enough ever is.

Gute also needs to pull a rabbit out of the hat this offseason and bring in some difference makers through the draft and free agency. He also needs to weed out the chronically injured and replace them.

Al, I raise the ante...said this many times...Gute messed up big time by not selling high on a (MVP) Rodgers a YEAR EARLIER, trading him WITH ADAMS to DENVER! That to me is REAL GM DNA. The talent and draft capital on the receiving end would have alleviated Gute's inept early round draft busts.

I brought up the point of Love as a "game manager" a few weeks ago. Given his regression this year, I'm quite intrigued to see if Gute is adapting this philosophy with offseason personnel moves. Will he primarily fortify the defense with the intention of keeping games close so that Love will be inclined to force less to cut TOs? Broken play recognition alluding to "RUN JORDAN RUN!" has certainly come to the forefront as much as his TOs and MLF's playcalling. Can't have a young athletic QB that isn't willing to run...it's nothing short of maddening in today's NFL.

I agree with you Dragon5 but I would bet my bottom dollar that Mr (Warm&Fuzzy) Mark Murphy
had a say In keeping Mr Rodgers at least one year too long!

Just one more example of the HC job looking too big for MLF. If you really want Love to be more vocal why does the media need to know about it? He's already got the pressure of a big contract followed by a year of underperformance. Maybe he feels like he needs to play better himself before barking at his teammates. Now he has to figure out how to be someone he's not on top of all the actual important things that need work like footwork and decision making.

MLF - If anyone needs to be more vocal and assertive its you! You still have ridiculous penalties happening like lining up offsides. You still can't make an intelligent challenge call. You still have a ST unit losing games for you. You still mismanage the clock. You still underutilize your most dangerous weapons and you still get your ass handed to you by every good coach in every big game.

I think you need to work on actually becoming the Offensive Genius that you've been touted to be. Right now I don't believe your even the best coach on your own team. Go look in the mirror and start yelling at that guy.

"Illusion of Complexity" is just such a bone-headed thing to call it.

If you tell people it's an illusion they'll see through it! GOD!

"Oh it's not complex at all, it just looks that way! In fact it's very, very basic!"

Ok thanks for the tip, we'll use some basic schemes to counter it then.

I’ve said a few times, Love plays nonchalant—like he just woke up from a nap—move it!
This entire team, with exception of Jacobs, Kraft, Cooper, and maybe Reed, need to play with some fire, Watching the Rams fly around the field made me envious.
Many have criticized MLF, including me. I’m with Al, he’s on notice—fix it!
I mentioned pursuing M. Parsons, but if Max Crosby is a legitimate FA, let’s get him. The last time we played the Raiders, he beat us by himself—his motor never stops.
Maybe he could inspire Clark, and LVN, and teach Gary how to finish.
Bring on the draft!
Go Packers!!!

Six years into his tenure, Lafleur is looking like Shermie. They share a similar winning percentage and history of playoff/big game failure. At this point. one only expects more of the same: uninspired, sloppy Packer teams that truly good teams thump.

The main difference between Lafleur and Shermie is that Shermie was GM, too, and Shermie the coach had to pull the team out of the hole that Shermie the GM dug. Lafleur can say Gutekunst shares some of the blame. He would be justified in saying so; Gutekunst is OK, but has left plenty of room for second guessing his players acquisition strategies and how he has run his scouting department.

Shermie had one lame duck year after Harlan gave GM duties to TT. With Murphy on the way out, it’s unclear whether he would fire anyone before he leaves. Probably not, but then it’s an open question how much slack Policy would cut either Gutekunst or Lafleur. Another disappointing trip to the playoffs is not going convince anyone that this team can turn it around.

Late to the party today. First I want to state that I agree with Coldworld's excellent post above.

The last 3 games of the season exposed the numerous weaknesses of not just the Packers on the field but also of the Packers organization. I have have posted going all the way back to the TT/McCarthy era of 3 major systemic issues with the Packers.

First is a lack of accountability. Ineffective coaches and players are allowed to remain with the organization far beyond their expiration dates.
Second is the lack of a sense of urgency: This is at least partially the result of the first item. If you're not being coached, guided or pushed that you need to improve you are less likely to actually improve.
Third is the lack of leadership which is a result of the first 2 items. If no one is being held accountable and they don't feel the need to improve it's unlikely that anyone will step forward and take on a leadership role, especially on the field.

IMO these systemic issues begin with Mark Murphy and filter down through the GM and coaching staff to the team's performance on the field. Lombardi bought accountability, leadership and a sense of urgency to the Packers that impacted everyone in the organization not just the players on the field. Bob Harlen, Ron Wolf and Mike Holmgren all brought accountability, leadership and a sense of urgency to their respective roles in the organization and returned the Packers to being an elite, championship organization.

As a non-profit organization with a secure revenue stream from league revenue sharing and a sold out stadium with a 20+ year waiting list it's not unreasonable for the Packers to have these issues. However they are competing in a win it all now industry. As Coach Lombardi said; "In this business if you're not first, you're last." That's Accountability, a sense of urgency and leadership in one concise, succinct, sentence. It could not be more clear.

I just don't see any of the above in the Mark Murphy led organization. Rodgers brought leadership and a sense of urgency to the team but he was vilified as being arrogant for showing it on the field. To me he was a professional and he was trying to get the message through to his team mates. I'm not necessarily condoning his methods but he was frustrated with the lack of urgency which had trickled down into the team's performance from, I believe, the top levels of the organization.

Now the Packers have a young team with questionable leadership from the HC and the apparent acceptance of sloppy play, e.g. penalties, and no one is held accountable. Fortunatey the Packers have a few players like Jacobs, McKinney and Cooper who play with a sense of urgency but it takes much more than that to win the SB. At least they can evolve into leaders on the field.

My concern with the incoming team President is that he is an inside guy who may take the same approach as Murphy. Maintain the status quo, don't shake up the organization and keep the organization relevant. Hopefully I'm wrong and the new President brings some sense of accountability and a sense of urgency to the team. If not the Packers will continue to be a good team with disappointing playoff losses and infrequent trips to the SB. Sounds about right for the last 32 seasons. Thanks, Since '61

I do not think MLF is a good coach period. His in game decision making is abysmal but we are stuck with him for a while probably.