NFL Trade Rumors
Packers HC Matt LaFleur and GM Brian Gutekunst both enter the 2025 season with two years left on their contracts. Ed Policy, who will be taking over as team president on July 25, told reporters recently that Green Bay won’t be signing them to extensions before this season.
That sets up this season as a possible “make-or-break year for LaFleur and Gutekunst, despite the two largely being viewed as successful over the past several years. Policy believes coaches and general managers having just one year left on their deals creates “a lot of issues” but didn’t want to commit to avoiding what’s called a “lame duck year” for LaFleur and Gutekunst.
“That creates a lot of issues,” said Policy, via Matt Schneidman of The Athletic. “I think normally, you have a pretty good idea of where that relationship is going when you have two years left — not always, but normally. But it creates a lot of issues because they also have to hire a staff … generally speaking, I would avoid lame-duck status. It’s oftentimes difficult on everybody involved, but there are certain situations that probably call for it. So I would not say never.”
Policy states that evaluating head coaches begins with their ability to win games, while also assessing their effectiveness in developing players.
“With head coaches, it starts with wins and losses, but that’s a little too simple of an answer for this,” Policy said. “It can’t end with that. At the end of the day, we are here to win football games, so it does start with that. But coaches are fundamentally teachers, I think. They develop people, so you evaluate them on how they’re developing people. First, with the players, are they developing players individually? Are players getting better? … And then, are they improving as a team? What’s the locker room culture like? Is it cohesive? And is it one team or is it a bunch of individuals?”
As for the general manager role, Policy wants to make sure Gutekunst is “aligned” with LaFleur and proving capable of building a “winning roster.”
“Are they aligned? Are they communicating? That will be a very important thing to evaluate both of them on,” Policy said. “With the GM, again, it’s always going to be, are they performing and meeting their goals? Is their behavior and their conduct really aligned with our culture and our values? And then just, are their draft picks and their free agents — it probably takes a little while to determine this, it probably takes at least three years or so to really figure this out — but are they building a winning roster? Are they bringing in the right kind of people for our system and for the coach and the right kind of character people?”
Policy went on to praise LaFleur, Gutekunst, and director of football operations Russ Ball, saying he feels “very good” about working alongside all three. Each of them signed contracts at the same time back...
