Giants-Packers questions, answers: Is Matt LaFleur on the hot seat?

Version 2.0 of the 2025 New York Giants, this one with Mike Kafka as head coach instead of Brian Daboll, takes on the Green Bay Packers Sunday at MetLife Stadium. To learn more about the Packers we turned to Justis Mosqueda of SB Nation’s Acme Packing Company in this week’s ‘5 questions’ segment.

Ed: The Giants just fired their head coach after a third straight 2-8 start to a season. There is chatter that Matt LaFleur is on the hot seat. The Packers made the playoffs last year and are in playoff position this year. So, what is up with that?

Justis: After the draft, President/CEO Mark Murphy retired (the Packers have a policy to retire the position automatically after a certain age), so we basically got a new sitting owner in Ed Policy, son of Carmen Policy – who served as the president/CEO and VP/counsel to the owner for five San Francisco 49ers Super Bowl champions. Policy came in immediately and said that no one is getting extensions right away, implying that Matt LaFleur hadn’t earned that extension at this point. The expectations after the Micah Parsons trade were to win a Super Bowl, and Green Bay isn’t close right now. Had the Parsons trade not been made, this team might be somewhere in the 3-6 to 2-7 range right now. Basically, making the playoffs isn’t enough to keep the job around here. McCarthy made the playoffs for eight straight years, had one losing season and then was shown the door in-season the next year.

Ed: Green Bay has lost two straight and scored just 20 combined points. What is up with that?

Justis: Matt LaFleur doesn’t know how to beat two-high defenses if he can’t run the ball. The offense will run for one yard on first down and then run the ball again on 2nd and 9 if they get a split-safety look again on the next play. Over the last two games, the Packers have had to play 32 third- and fourth-downs. Green Bay saw 16 of those situations in just seven drives against the Carolina Panthers two weeks ago. In short, they just can’t run the ball, which is really what LaFleur wants to do every play, if given the opportunity.

Ed: If you could take one player off the Giants roster and put him in Green Bay’s lineup, who would it be? Why?

Justis: Well, Malik Nabers is banged up right now, but I wouldn’t mind Dexter Lawrence in green and gold. The Packers have a little bit of a hole at nose tackle right now following the trade of Kenny Clark, but Colby Wooden has been a passable player on the interior. Obviously, though, the jump to Lawrence would be huge.

Ed: A couple of years ago the chatter was that Jordan Love was going to follow Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers as the next Green Bay Hall Of Fame quarterback. We don’t hear that anymore. What is Love...