Acme Packing Company
The Packers’ bye week is over. Fresh off a pair of disappointing performances against the Browns and Cowboys, the Packers headed for their week off in need of some rest, recuperation, and refocusing ahead of the marathon of football that remains yet this season, a five-month march that will hopefully end with the Packers hoisting the only trophy that matters in the NFL.
To start that march, all they have to do is navigate the minefield that is their first game after the bye.
To hear the internet tell it, under Matt LaFleur the Packers’ first game after the bye has been closer to a humiliation ritual than a football game. The story goes that year after year, the Packers deliver a listless, uninspiring performance after their bye that usually results in a loss, at least as far as the LaFleur era is concerned.
Is that true? Well, there’s at least some truth to it, even if it’s not perfectly accurate. Counting the playoffs (where the Packers have had a Wildcard Round bye three times under LaFleur), the Packers are 4-5 after the bye under LaFleur. In those nine games, they have a point differential of -15. Outside of the playoffs, LaFleur’s Packers are 3-3 with a -31 point differential. Twice his teams have lost a post-bye game by at least 28 points.
That’s a significant departure from his predecessors. In 17 post-bye games (counting playoffs), Mike McCarthy’s Packers teams were a combined 11-6 after the bye, racking up a point differential of +155. His post-bye wins included victories of 22, 26, 28, and 41 points. LaFleur’s never won a post-bye game by more than 15. Even Mike Sherman went 4-2 in post-bye games, and his two losses came by 3 and 8 points, respectively.
In fairness, LaFleur and the Packers are 2-1 in their last three post-bye games, but that figure looks a little bit worse when you interrogate it. Their 2022 win over the Rams was solid; the Packers came out on top 24-12. But that win came at the expense of Baker Mayfield, who’d been in town for barely two weeks and was making his first start for the Rams.
In 2023, the Packers dropped their post-bye game to the Broncos 19-17. Anders Carlson missed a field goal late in the first half (and Denver promptly marched down and kicked one of their own as the first half ended), and Jordan Love threw an interception as the Packers were driving with a chance to win in the fourth quarter. Typical of the 2023 season, it was a disappointing performance in a very winnable game.
And finally last year, the Packers needed a blocked field goal on the final play of regulation to eke out a 20-19 win over Matt Eberflus and the Chicago Bears. Eberflus would be fired less than a month later.
In short, it’s true that LaFleur’s teams do seem to come out of the bye at the very least with a tendency toward underperformance...
