The problem for the Packers is not that in three games against the Bears in the last six weeks, they’ve outscored Chicago 41-6 before halftime and gone on to lose two of those games. It’s not that the second of those losses, a 31-27 wild-card collapse at Soldier Field, capped a five-game losing streak to end a season that began with Super Bowl expectations. And it’s not even that the Bears scored 25 points in the fourth quarter, finally taking the lead with 1:43 remaining on a long touchdown pass from Caleb Williams to DJ Moore, completing their most dramatic comeback yet in a season full of them.
The problem for Matt LaFleur is that in that fourth quarter of a playoff game, with their season in the balance, while their bitter rival was playing like this…
LaFleur’s team was playing like this…
Green Bay’s second-half crumble, which officially ended with Jordan Love scooping up a bobbled snap and frantically heaving his last chance at a game-winning touchdown incomplete into the end zone after time expired, was the latest in a growing list of disappointing playoff finishes under LaFleur. As the Packers head into the offseason, it’s LaFleur who will get the most scrutiny.
“This is going to hurt for a really, really long time,” LaFleur told reporters after the game.
Heading into the playoffs, LaFleur’s name was already being mentioned as a surprise coach who could be on the proverbial hot seat. Even with the Packers’ late-season slide, it’s an odd position for the coach of a playoff-bound team to be in, especially when that coach has an overall track record like LaFleur does. But this league is not a patient one, and the Packers coach is entering the final year of his contract in 2026.
The uncertainty about LaFleur’s future is in part because the Packers new president and CEO, the bureaucratically-named Ed Policy, decided not to commit to extending LaFleur or general manager Brian Gutekunst’s contracts right away when he was hired last summer. Back in June, Policy told reporters he, “would avoid lame-duck status. It's oftentimes difficult on everybody involved.”
That comment looms large now, and suggests that Policy will be facing a very big decision: start negotiations with LaFleur on a new contract fresh off a losing-streak and embarrassing Round 1 exit, or move on before things get awkward.
Before Saturday’s game, both ESPN’s Adam Schefter and NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported Lafleur was not coaching for his job in the game, and that contract discussions would indeed begin after the season with both the team and coach wanting to stay together. But even if that hasn’t changed after the Saturday night meltdown, there’s always some chance a negotiation goes south. It now seems inevitable that the outcome of the Bears game will at least complicate those talks because of the way LaFleur’s coaching was at the heart of the Packers’ second half. And LaFleur’s job status was enough of a question that reporters brought it up, both to him and to Love, in their respective post-game press conferences.
“Yeah, with all due respect to your question, now’s not the time for that,” LaFleur said. “I mean, I’m just hurting for these guys. I can only think about what just happened, and there will be time for that.”
Love voiced his support, telling reporters that he “definitely think[s] Matt should remain the head coach.”
But it would have been hard to watch the second half Saturday night and not have questions about the team’s strategy. The defense fell apart, unable to get consistent pressure on Caleb Williams in critical moments, and the kicking game was a mess. Kicker Brandon McManus cost Green Bay seven points with two missed field goal attempts, one at the end of the first half and another late in the fourth quarter, and a missed extra point.
And the offense, which is LaFleur’s bread and butter and the strongest part of the current team, lacked answers to the Bears’ second-half defensive adjustments.
Love was pressured just twice in the first half and had no issues picking apart Chicago’s man-heavy coverages. But once Chicago’s coordinator Dennis Allen adjusted by sending additional pass-rushers at Love far more often in the second half, Green Bay couldn’t get into a solid rhythm. Coming out of halftime, with an opportunity to try to milk time of possession and keep the Bears off the field, the Packers punted on four-straight possessions, struggling to get anything going on the ground or in the quick game that might mitigate Chicago’s pressure and insisting on living in shotgun.
LaFleur also failed in his game management as he burned through his team’s first two timeouts with his team up 27-24 before the two-minute warning. The offense was flagged for a delay-of-game penalty while coming out of the second time out, making a third-and-long even longer. (McManus then missed a 44-yarder on fourth down.) By the time Love was driving for the win in the final minute, the Packers had only one timeout left.
And that’s not even accounting for the near-disasters that were narrowly avoided, like the pass to backup offensive lineman Darian Kinnard, which he caught, then promptly fumbled while fighting for extra yards. The Packers were bailed out by the ball going out of bounds.
Green Bay is no stranger to bad playoff losses. But, against the rival Bears, with the stands full of Chicagoans ready to line the streets with cheddar shavings, this might be the worst of them.
It’s hard to truly buy that LaFleur is in actual danger of losing his job. It would be an incredibly bold move. He has a .654 career win percentage, fourth-best among active NFL coaches and 16th-best all time. For now at least, it’s a better win rate than Bill Belichick or Andy Reid can claim. The Packers entered this season with big expectations, which only increased after the all-in move to trade for pass rusher Micah Parsons in August, but they’ve been hit by some significant injuries. Parsons tore his ACL in December, and the absence of their solid right tackle Zach Tom probably had something to do with why Green Bay struggled to establish a foundation in the running game against Chicago.
But these kinds of losses are piling up. His tenure with the Packers started with earning three straight no. 1 seeds in the conference, but each time the Packers failed to reach the Super Bowl. In the 2019 season, they lost at home to Jimmy Garoppolo and the 49ers in the NFC championship game. In the 2020 season, LaFleur opted to kick a field goal late in the NFC championship game against Tom Brady’s Buccaneers in a game Green Bay ultimately lost by one score. The next year, LaFleur’s team was one-and-done in the playoffs, losing at home to the 49ers in the divisional round in Aaron Rodgers’s final playoff game as a Packer.
Since then, the Packers have just one playoff win, in the wild-card round two years ago against the Cowboys. LaFleur, who came up under Kyle Shanahan, and was on the Falcons staff for the 28-3 Super Bowl disaster, was already getting a reputation for blowing leads and turtling late in games. And now, this.
The Bears have been a team of second-half magic all season. Saturday’s win was Chicago’s seventh of this season in a game they trailed within the last two minutes, an NFL record. Sure, it’s been exciting, but that’s not necessarily a good thing! The Bears are inconsistent and have needed a lot of luck, especially on defense, to get here, gearing up to host a divisional-round game against either the Eagles or the Rams. But in the last minutes of a game, no one who’s watched the Bears this year should question that they’ll go out swinging, at the very least. The lasting image of this Bears team from Saturday will be Williams, rolling out left on 4th-and-8 and keeping the game alive with the throw of the night.
This Packers team, with Aaron Rodgers and now with Love, has always been more than capable of those kinds of plays, but can’t seem to make them in the biggest moments. When that is the case, it’s hard not to look at the people calling the shots for answers.
