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When the Green Bay Packers came up just short of besting the Chicago Bears in the Wild Card Round of the 2026 NFL Playoffs, it led fans to question whether Matt LaFleur was still the right man to lead Jordan Love and company into the future.
On one hand, the Packers have been very successful under LaFleur’s tenure, even when he’s been forced to rely on a backup quarterback under center, but after amassing a 3-6 record in the postseason, has Green Bay reached their ceiling under the current regime?
Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports took it upon himself to answer this question and reached out to a pair of top-tier offensive minds, Greg Olsen and Jon Gruden, to get their takes on the situation. Olsen, a star tight end-turned-commentator, decided to throw his support behind LaFleur, as he believes he’s still a fantastic option at head coach.
“I think you do nothing. I think the notion that Matt LaFleur’s job is potentially in jeopardy is a bit ridiculous. I think what we’ve found over years, and obviously coach probably has a great perspective on this, is I think everyone is always in such a rush to find a replacement. And so often, the replacement is by far worse than who the original coach was,” Olsen explained.
“And I think a guy like Matt LaFleur, his track record of offensive play calling and the success they’ve had, yeah, they’ve lost some tough playoff games and they’ve lost some tough games down the stretch and bad endings. And certainly Saturday night is up there, you know, you’re up 21 to three at halftime against a team that had shown nothing there in the beginning of the game. And then you end up letting it slide.
“I just think the notion that you think you’re going to upgrade from Matt LaFleur in this hiring cycle is nonsense. So I think Packers fans have every right to be disappointed, frustrated, mad. They certainly need to figure out why they can’t close some of these games out. But the notion that they’re going to upgrade this coaching cycle from Matt LaFleur, I just, I think is nonsense.”
Gruden weighed in too, noting that he believes the Packers should keep LaFleur around if for no other reason than there simply isn’t a better option on the market.
“There’s no way I would let LaFleur out of the building unless anyone has a better candidate. And there’s no better candidate. The guy’s done a great job of transitioning from Aaron Rodgers to Love. Love played great. Love has a bright future,” Gruden noted.
“They’ve got to run the football. They couldn’t run the ball with a 21-point lead. The clock is the enemy, and they got nothing going on the ground. We all know they are missing some of their top players, (Tyler) Kraft at tight end, Micah Parsons. They brought in Nate Hobbs to play corner, they gave him $40 million, and he never played....
