What Matt LaFleur and Packers must accomplish in 2024 for head coach to finally win Coach of the Year

O NFL The Coach of the Year award is nebulous, as its official description is the “coach considered to have had the most outstanding season.”

What defines an exceptional season for an NFL coach is certainly in the eye of the beholder, with some defining the award as the best comeback effort – recent winners like the Cleveland Browns’ Kevin Stefanski (2020, 2023) and the New York Giants’ Brian Daboll (2022) comes to mind – while others reward regular season dominance en route to top playoff positions – recent winners like John Harbaugh of the Baltimore Ravens (2019) and former Tennessee Titans coach Mike Vrabel (2021) come for mind.

Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur, whose 56-27 record (.675 winning percentage) ranks as the 11th highest winning percentage of all time, just ahead of Paul Brown (213-105, .672) and just behind Don Shula (318). -148-31, .682), has led his team in both types of regular seasons in his five years at the helm since 2019, but he doesn’t have any Coach of the Year gear to show for it. His 2019-2021 Packers are the only team in NFL history to win at least 13 games three consecutive seasons.

Entering 2024, LaFleur may have his best shot at +1000 odds to win the award, third-best in the NFL behind only new Los Angeles Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh (+800) and Chicago Bears head coach Matt Eberflus (+900), according to Caesars Sportsbook.

Here are four of his five seasons (2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023) in which LaFleur had a chance to win the award. Then we’ll see what he and the Packers have to do for him to take home the title in 2024.

2019

Case: Significant team improvement
MODE: John Harbaugh (Ravens)

Packers Registration: 13-3 (#2 seed in NFC)

The Packers went a disappointing 6-9-1 in 2018, Mike McCarthy’s final year in 13 years as Green Bay’s head coach, as he and future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers clashed over Green Bay’s offensive playbook. team. Rodgers led the league in touchdown-to-interception ratio (25-2), and Green Bay ranked 14th in scoring (23.5), but something was wrong.

McCarthy’s quarterback clearly no longer believed in his playbook, as Rodgers led the NFL in dropped passes with 48, 13 more than the next closest quarterback, Case Keenum of the Denver Broncos (35), had that year. After a disappointing 20–17 home loss against the Josh Rosen-led Arizona Cardinals in Week 13, Packers team president Mark Murphy fired McCarthy that night.

Fast forward to 2019, LaFleur has Rodgers believing more in his Shanahan playbook, featuring more centralized looks with a zone blocking scheme and greater use of play action. Green Bay’s defense also improved after the addition of edge rushers Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith following the hiring of defensive coordinator Mike Pettine. The end result was the Packers improving to a 13-3 record, the first time Green Bay had won that many games since the team’s 15-1 run in 2011, and the team clinched second place in the NFC.

John Harbaugh went on to win the award that season with a 14–2 record, quarterback Lamar Jackson was named the unanimous NFL MVP, and the Ravens’ offense led the league in scoring (33.2 points per game).

2020, 2021

Case: Domain. Aaron Rodgers wins back-to-back NFL MVPs, Packers earn back-to-back NFC No. 1 seed with 13 wins
MODE: Kevin Stefanski (Browns, 2020), Mike Vrabel (Titans, 2021)

Just a year before LaFleur arrived as Packers coach in 2018, Rodgers seemed unresponsive and checked out. In LaFleur’s second season, Green Bay returned to the top seed in the NFC, and Rodgers put together two of the best seasons of his career, winning back-to-back NFL MVPs.

His best season under LaFleur came in 2020, when he threw a career-high 48 touchdowns, and also led the league that year in completion percentage (70.7%), air yards per pass attempt (9 ,6),touchdown to interception ratio. (48-5) and passer rating (121.5). LaFleur’s offense led the league in points per game (31.8) and red zone touchdown rate (80%). Green Bay took first place in the conference with a 13-3 record.

New Cleveland Browns coach Kevin Stefanski won the Coach of the Year trophy for leading a 6-10 team in 2019 under former coach Freddie Kitchens to an 11-5 record in 2020, thus earning a spot wild card in the AFC.

The overall metrics weren’t as dominant in 2021, with the Packers’ offense averaging just 26.5 points per game (10th in the NFL), but Rodgers once again led the NFL in touchdown-to-interception ratio (37-4). and passer rating (111.9) on his way to another MVP award. The Packers also clinched the NFC’s No. 1 seed and the NFL’s best record with a 13-4 mark.

Tennessee Titans coach Mike Vrabel took home the award after the Titans achieved a 12-5 record and became the No. 1 seed in the AFC despite an injury-plagued campaign. All-Pro running back Derrick Henry played just eight games, and Pro Bowl wide receiver AJ Brown missed four games, scoring just two of the many players who missed a notable amount of time for Tennessee that season.

Rodgers’ 2020 and 2021 NFL Seasons (NFL Rankings)

2023

Case: Significant team improvement, QB Jordan Love began throwing 32 TD passes and Packers returned to postseason
MODE: Kevin Stefanski (Browns)

Packers Registration: 9-8 (#7 seed in NFC)

The Packers missed Rodgers’ last year’s playoffs in Green Bay in 2022 after he broke his thumb on the last play of their Week 5 loss against the New York Giants in London. The injury, plus Rodgers no longer being as willing to run LaFleur’s Shanahan-style offense and reverting to hearing many West Coast offensive concepts from McCarthy’s offenses, led to an ineffective 8-9 season. A 20–16 loss at Lambeau Field against the Detroit Lions in the regular season finale caused Green Bay to narrowly miss the postseason.

The first season had Jordan Love, the Packers’ 2020 first-round pick, at quarterback, which started unevenly, with Love throwing slightly more touchdowns (14) than interceptions (10). Green Bay lost six of its first nine games.

However, LaFleur helped Love find his rhythm in the second half of the season, and he posted an NFL-best 18-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio in Weeks 11-18, helping propel the Packers to victories in six of their last eight games, which earned them the final spot in the NFC playoffs at 9-8.

I love the 2023 regular season

*Leaded the NFL among 28 quarterbacks with 150 or more passes from Weeks 11 through 18

Love ended up finishing the year with 32 touchdown passes, second most in the entire league behind only Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott’s 36, something many wouldn’t have thought possible in his first run as Rodgers’ Packers successor.

However, Stefanski took home his second Coach of the Year in 2023 as his Browns earned an 11-6 record despite having to start five different quarterbacks – Deshaun Watson (six starts), Joe Flacco (five starts), Dorian Thompson-Robinson (three starts), PJ Walker (two starts) and Jeff Driskel (one start) – and getting Flacco off the couch and back into the league mid-season. Flacco won the NFL Comeback Player of the Year award as Cleveland won four of its five games down the stretch.

What LaFleur needs to do to win Coach of the Year in 2024

The league appears to be as open as it has been to rewarding LaFleur’s coaching efforts, as he has the third-best odds for the regular-season award. LaFleur was not able to win the award with Rodgers as his quarterback, despite him calling the plays – perhaps because Rodgers was already a Super Bowl champion and two-time league MVP when the head coach arrived in Green Bay in 2019.

If Love, who LaFleur and quarterbacks coach Tom Clements have uniquely developed, can make a leap to become a consistently elite quarterback and finish near the top of the passing touchdown leaderboards again as the Packers win double-digit games and the NFC North division, he should be able to win Coach of the Year honors.

Green Bay was the youngest team to win a playoff game since the AFL/NFL merger in 1970, with an average age of 25 years and 214 days after eliminating the NFC’s second-place Dallas Cowboys 48-32. in the wild card round. The Packers also nearly upset the conference’s top seed and eventual champion, the San Francisco 49ers, losing 24-21 in the division despite all their youth and inexperience.

All of this success was achieved with Love throwing for a pass-catching unit comprised exclusively of first- or second-year players. Wide receiver Christian Watson, who was 24 during the 2023 season, was the “elder statesman” of the pass-catching group.

With another year of experience as the NFL’s starting quarterback and all of his players a year older, Love and the Packers could easily take another leap forward, which could finally elevate LaFleur to the league’s Coach of the Year.